From Tim Heider, Clackamas County Public Affairs Coordinator 503-742-5911

06-17-2010

Clackamas County Family Court Services and the Clackamas County Dispute Resolution Center will become one on July 1.

Family Court Services (FCS), founded in 1976, has a mission of strengthening families who have family-law related issues by providing an array of services including counseling, education, and mediation.

The Dispute Resolution Center (DRC)has been assisting County residents since 1992, providing  conflict resolution services, including community, neighbor-to-neighbor, and workplace mediation, facilitation, training, and education. These include neighborhood disputes involving barking dogs, code violations, roads and easements, property maintenance, boundaries.  The services are provided in coordination with community partners such as the Circuit Court, the Oregon Office of Community Dispute Resolution, local municipalities, businesses, and other County departments.

The consolidation is expected to enhance service delivery while creating financial efficiencies through resource sharing.

Toward that end, the DRC will be moving into the FCS offices, located at the Public Services Building, 2051 Kaen Road, Oregon City.  The transition will include a name change sometime in the future to better reflect the new broader mission.

 "Our work will now further enhance public safety by ensuring that families, community members, neighbors, and businesses in Clackamas County have access to methods of resolving their disputes peacefully," said Lauren MacNeill, director of Clackamas County Family Court Services. "Our services are dedicated to sustainable conflict resolution, helping parties resolve the dispute at hand as well as to build skills to help resolve future conflicts," she said.

"This restructuring will enable us to be more flexible and responsive to community needs," she said.

 Most notably, FCS's highly regarded Youth & Family Mediation Program, which was formed through a start-up grant and has operated over the past 15 years, will be close June 30 due to funding cuts.  This program provided an innovative model using a team of an adult and a trained youth mediator to help youth and their parents or adult caregivers resolve their disputes, and also provided peer mediation and dispute resolution trainings in area schools.

 FCS will continue to provide youth and family mediation services and plans on continuing its collaborative relationships with the Clackamas county schools.

 The DRC is scheduled to move its offices the week of June 28 and will not be providing services during that time. Although its physical location is changing DRC's phone and email contact information remains the same.  .

To learn more about Clackamas County Family Court Services visit http://www.co.clackamas.or.us/fcs/

To learn more about the Dispute Resolution Center visit http://www.co.clackamas.or.us/cscc/mediation.htm