Kind offers safe space for LGBTQ conflict resolution

Marika Van Schepen

In a time of conflict and violence, Kind Space — an LGBTTQ+ organization located in downtown Ottawa — is focusing on resolution in the New Year. Kind is offering training days facilitated by Community Mediation Ottawa this March that will help participants to become mediators in LGBTTQ+ disputes.

People from the community can learn skills and methods to deal with common LBGTTQ+ issues such as homophobia in the workplace, conflict during activism, violence in relationships and navigating relationships with multiple partners.

Carling Miller, executive director of Kind Space, says this is the first step in what the organization hopes will be a long-term plan to address conflicts like these faced by the queer community.

The workshops will be offered on a pay-what-you-can basis to make them more accessible.

Community Mediation Ottawa typically deals with disputes between people who don’t see eye to eye, whether they are neighbours, family, friends or roommates. They step in to facilitate difficult conversations and help parties come to solutions, according to Allison Hewlitt, a longtime volunteer with the organization.

For Kind’s training days, people will work towards becoming mediators themselves. They will learn basic skills such as facilitating conversations and brainstorming peaceful solutions.

They will then apply and practise these skills through role-playing common LGBTTQ+ scenarios.

Community Mediation Ottawa consists of a network of trained volunteer mediators who work with individuals facing conflict to help them come to peaceful resolution. Hewlitt said they are excited to collaborate with Kind: “We want to be representative of the city and its diversity so it’s important to have a roster of mediators that is as diverse as possible,” she said.

After the Kind event, participants can continue training with Community Mediation Ottawa and work towards becoming CMO mediators on a volunteer basis.

Miller said this kind of training is especially important in the LGBTTQ+ community. “Our community is one with a high rate of trauma, so we wanted to do this to work through and deal with conflicts that lots of people struggle with,” Miller said.

There are many complicated dynamics at play within the LGBTTQ+ community and its relationships with the broader community. “It’s small and when one thing happens there is a huge ripple effect and we want to minimize that and help with a healing process,” Miller says.

A lot of the registered members for the event are people from the community who already mediate informally. Miller explained that, “it’s people who see the effect conflict has in Ottawa, in our community, and want the skills to be able to deal with it properly.”

Zoë Burness is a second-year English student at Carleton University who is also gay. Burness said she is directly aware of some the hate and conflict that is rampant in today’s political climate.

“Especially with (U.S. President Donald) Trump, I think that a lot of closeted homophobes are coming out… He has given them a space where its OK to be homophobic and share those opinions with people in the LBGTTQ+ plus community.” She says she’s interested in the training Kind is offering and sees its value to Ottawa as a whole. “It’s really important that people have calm, rational, mediated conversations right now and I think training events like this give us a toolkit to navigate disputes,” said Burness.

Anyone interested in participating can register on Kind’s website for the training days that will take place on March 11, 12, 25 and 26.

Miller said Kind has already received significant interest and is already considering another set of sessions in May.