Cru Institute

Causes: Children & Youth, Children & Youth Services, Crime & Law, Dispute Resolution & Mediation, Youth Development - Citizenship, Youth Violence Prevention

Mission: CRU Institute provides conflict resolution, peer mediation, and cultural awareness training to schools and educational institutions across the United States, with a particular focus on serving Washington and the Pacific Northwest region. Our mission is to teach young people effective, peaceful ways to resolve conflict and to develop understanding, respect, and the ability to cooperate with others in a multicultural world. We work with schools, school districts, and youth organizations to establish and support structured conflict mediation programs in which students act as peer mediators. Since 1992, our hallmark peer mediation programs have been established in over 400 schools across the country (as well as Singapore, Toronto, and Jamaica). We annually impact 10,000 individuals and directly train more than 2,000 students and faculty members. (This number does not include students who receive training by faculty trained by CRU Institute to conduct their own conflict resolution programs.) We are a small organization, working to create positive change, one school, one community, at a time. CRU Institute focuses on serving K-12 populations throughout the U.S. with a particular focus on schools with significant racial, cultural, and socio-economic diversity. An aggregate description of the school populations we serve is: 37% Free and Reduced Lunch, White 47%, African American 18%, Asian 22%, Hispanic 11%, and Native American 2%. CRU Institute was positively cited in the 1998 Safe Schools, Safe Students: A Guide to Violence Prevention Strategies and featured in the National Association of Social Workers' national magazine, Currents, and the American School Counselor Association's School Counselor. We have conducted workshops and institutes at such conferences as the National Education Association, American Bar Association, Association for Conflict Resolution, National Peer Helper Conference, Academy of Family Mediators, and Washington State and Kansas Bar Associations. Our materials are widely used by other mediation training programs throughout the country. While there are perhaps 10 other organizations in the country that provide conflict resolution training and workshops, they are not as nationally known as CRU Institute and have not developed a line of quality curriculum materials. In fact, our training materials, videos, and manuals are regularly used by other mediation training organizations across the country.