Field Mediation Teams
Add a dispute response capability to your 911/ 988 ecosystem
Context: Field Mediation Teams are a new kind of mobile response capability, pioneered by Dayton’s Mediation Response Unit (MRU), which responds to 911 interpersonal conflict calls including complaints about a neighbor, roommate, family, pet, kids, vehicles, strangers, and noise. Dignity Best Practices helped launch the MRU as the city’s implementation process partner. Since 2022, the team takes about a call per hour that used to be a police call.
Challenges include: Field Mediation is an emerging, promising practice, not yet well known and established.
The Opportunity: An estimated 10% of 911 calls could receive a Field Mediation Team response rather than a police response. While many local governments may not easily afford a new standalone field mediation team, it is possible to greatly expand this practice by cross-training existing mobile response teams to also have a mediation capability.
Field Mediation Launch Toolkit
This robust Toolkit provides guidance, tools, and templates for any city or county looking to launch a standalone Field Mediation team, or to cross-training an existing mobile team. It includes making the case, budgeting, protocols, job descriptions, training, and much more. Some elements of this toolkit will also be useful to more traditional behavioral health mobile teams looking to launch or improve, such as the community engagement and continuous improvement sections.
Competitive Application for Free Technical Assistance
Thanks to a visionary grant from AAA-ICDR Foundation, Dignity Best Practices will be able to provide 15 months of free technical assistance to two cities or counties who wish to launch a field mediation capability. The assistance will begin in January 2026, and applications are due October 1, 2025. Contact us at contact@dignitybestpractices.org to express interest.
Adding Mediation to the Crisis Response Toolkit
Watch a presentation on how conflict can be a co-occuring challenge when people are experiencing a behavioral health crisis, and how the same skills deployed by Dayton’s Mediation Response Unit can be relevant for mobile response teams to hone. These skills include being comfortable with conflict, holding a neutral yet warmly empathetic space, and supporting direct communication rather than carrying messages between the disputing parties.
Attribution: We provide editable resources so they can be maximally valuable, including adaptation to your local environment. If you edit one of our resources, please provide this attribution in a footer: “Adapted from materials by Dignity Best Practices.”
Selected Resources from Partners in This Space
Dayton Mediation Center: Mediation Response Unit (City of Dayton)
Profile: Dayton Mediation Response Unit (CSG)
Webinar: AAA-ICDR Foundation Grantee Dayton’s Mediation Response Unit (AAA-ICDR and ACR-GNY)
Comments on these resources, or another to suggest? We would love to hear from you at contact@dignitybestpractices.org