"We began planning in late April 2020, and virtual mediations took place in the latter part of May 2020. Jolynn Dunn, ADR Regional Coordinator polled the panel of mediators to see who would be interested in mediating virtually.

The next step was changing all of the forms to reflect virtual mediations and the new guidelines needed. The Admin team went to work. The decision was also made to have agreements typed and no longer hand written, as going through scanning made them very hard to read.

Once all of the changes were in place, the next step was getting the volunteers ready to mediate virtually. Nancy Kanan, Finance & Contract coordinator worked initially in groups and then individually with each volunteer that agreed to do virtual mediations. They were instructed on all aspects of providing mediation through Zoom. Once the mediators were comfortable with the process and were able to install the DRC background or a green screen that was provided on their computer, they were ready to once again mediate."

"DRC has now been providing zoom virtual mediation only for the past year. Changes had to be made as issues came up, but virtual mediations have been working very well. One of the advantages of virtual is that all of our mediators can be utilized in all of our counties no matter where they reside. In the past the volunteers would only do mediations in the county where they resided.

Over the past year, the DRC ADR staff: Nancy Kanan, Jolynn Dunn, Miriam Frankl, Brenda Jobe, Marie Perry-Edwards & Hans Schlange have done an awesome job. With the traumatic past year and all the changes that the agency has gone through because of COVID they were all very willing to adjust to all the constant changes needed to continue to provide services to all of our communities.

While we may offer in person mediations again in September for clients who prefer not to use zoom, DRC’s future plan, even as New York returns to “normal,” is to continue providing mediations virtually. Mediators like it, we are able to provide more mediations in any particular day, weather is no longer a problem, and the clients are happy with the process."  – Donna Ramlow, June 2021