The Massachusetts Office of Public Collaboration (MOPC) is the statutory state office that focuses exclusively on assisting courts and public agencies access quality conflict resolution services and build evidence-based dispute resolution programs. MOPC is also the statutory administrator of the Community Mediation Center Grant Program, which provides state operational funding to qualified community mediation centers in Massachusetts.

This year, MOPC is working with the Massachusetts Trial Courts to assess court-connected ADR programming statewide in in order to better understand the current status of ADR awareness, accessibility, and utilization. MOPC has once again engaged HNMCP, this time to work with the office to design and conduct surveys, focus groups and interviews with court-connected ADR providers and to develop strategies to collect data from end-users of court-connected ADR services. The overall goal of this initiative is to determine how Massachusetts might strengthen and further institutionalize court-connected ADR.

Activities & Deliverables

• Create assessment plan for stakeholder engagement (interviews, focus groups, surveys) with direction from MOPC
• Develop strategies for collecting ADR utilization information from end-users
• Conduct information gathering with court-connected ADR providers using a combination of survey, interviews, and focus groups
• Report summarizing key findings and recommendations to strengthen use of ADR in the Massachusetts Trial Courts