Piedmont Dispute Resolution Center

PDRC is a non-profit organization whose mission is to provide dispute resolution, restorative justice information, education, and community services.

More About Us

We serve over 9,000 people on an annual basis by providing court-ordered mediation services at NO CHARGE to the parties in custody, visitation, child and spousal support cases in juvenile and domestic relations courts and in civil cases in the general district courts. We also provide restorative justice services to those involved in criminal cases and we provide conflict resolution training to schools and organizations. We save the community, and hardworking tax payers MONEY!! We do this by easing the burden on judges, courts, clerks, police and other law enforcement personnel. We do this by saving them valuable time, energy and money by helping parties settle their disputes out of court. We also offer private mediation services to include writing property settlement agreements in divorce cases, elder care, workplace and business mediation. PDRC's mediators all meet standards established by the Supreme Court of Virginia and are highly trained and experienced.

Piedmont Dispute Resolution Center plays an important role in helping to build and maintain healthy local communities by providing free or very reduced cost mediation and restorative justice services. Founded in 1990, the Center's services promote the peaceful resolution of conflicts. The Center serves the counties of Culpeper, Fauquier, Loudoun, Madison, Prince William, Rappahannock, Spotsylvania, Stafford and the Cities of Manassas and Manassas Park and surrounding areas. Its mediation, restorative justice, multi-party facilitation services and trainings are available to individuals, families, businesses, organizations, churches and communities-at-large.

PDRC has developed a Community Justice & Peacebuilding Program (CJP) to provide early access to mediation and restorative justice services in the communities of Fauquier, Northern Culpeper, and Rappahannock. All services are confidential and offered for free to individuals and organizations. The available services are Mediation, Restorative Justice Conferences, Conflict Coaching, and Conflict Resolution Mini Workshops. 

We offer a 4-hour Virginia Supreme Court approved co-parenting class on a monthly basis. This class includes a booklet and other materials. We have received rave reviews from class participants. They say it helped them communicate with the other parent which has had a positive impact on their children's lives.

The focus of our restorative justice program is the victim's needs and the offender's responsibility for repairing a harm that has been done. It has helped victims of crime get the closure they need by actually being able to tell the offender how the crime affected them, their lives and their families. In turn, the offenders are able to assume accountability for their actions, apologize to the victim and better see the overall picture of the impact of their actions. It should be noted, that the victim's participation is always voluntary.

We have been training staff in school districts in Fauquier, Prince William, Rappahannock, Manassas City, Manassas Park, Orange and Alexandria City in Restorative Practices. Restorative practices, which offer a proactive perspective to discipline, is greatly needed in schools and makes those who harmed be accountable for their actions. It builds community and gives a voice to those who are harmed. PDRC also offers free or low cost conflict resolution training to the community at large, schools, businesses and many others. Our peer mediation training as been very popular in the school systems.

Testimonials

Mediator was awesome!
The mediator was fair and respectful.
I thank the mediator for her kindness and understanding.
Was very good at explaining our options and made this a really good experience.
It went very well. Calm environment and easy to come to an agreement. Mediator was very helpful in walking us through the process.
Mediator was wonderful! She made me feel comfortable and calm. She was absolutely terrific!
The session was very professional.
Needed mediation--it was good to determine our differences.
Mediator was very helpful and could tell she wanted the best for our child. Wish it could have helped us stay out of court. Wanted a good outcome, but we just couldn't agree.
Well done--everyone wins. Thank you!
Made an uncomfortable situation much easier to process. Very pleased.
I appreciate this process. It helped make this stressful situation much fairer and easier to deal with.
All is solved as we have agreed to work out this situation.
Very helpful. Thank you for helping us.
Would use our mediator again! She was great! Thank you.
It gave us the opportunity to work things out. Things went well and our issues were resolved.
Great, accomplished everything I wanted with regard to my child.
Controlled environment made it easier to talk to each other without emotions being involved.