Spy Chat

Spy Chat: Mid-Shore Mediation’s Jenn Williams

December 12, 2019 by The Spy

While the holiday season does bring good tidings and cheers for all, Jenn Williams, the executive director of Mid-Shore Mediation, would add mediation to that list.

At a time when our society is becoming more and more divided on both the political and cultural front, Jenn, with her small army of dedicated staff and volunteers, is proving, with over 600 cases a year, that medication does indeed work, even with young people.

In fact, the lion’s share of Mid-Shore’s mediation casework takes place at the school level with stunning results. Not only do they work with students experiencing conflict with peers, but they also have been hugely successful in student-teacher challenges that not only lead to positive outcomes for the participants, but for entire classrooms.

The Spy sat down with Jenn a few weeks ago to talk about Mid-Shore Mediation, a group she has worked for decades as its youth coordinator before becoming their new director last year. In her interview, Jenn outlines this remarkably successful record.

This video is approximately five minutes in length. For more information about Mid-Shore Mediation please go here

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Spy Chat: The False Narrative of Mental Health and Mass Shootings with Marty Cassell

December 9, 2019 by Dave Wheelan

A predictable narrative about mental illness begins almost immediately after every mass shooting in this country. Even before a word is said about gun control, the emphasis on the perpetrator’s mental state is already part of the story.

But as Marty Cassell, Clinical Director at Channel Marker, the Mid-Shore’s primary organization for mental health and wellness support, points out in his Spy interview from last month, it’s a false narrative that adds to the unfair stigma for those being successfully treated for their condition.

For over thirty years in the mental health field, Marty has never experienced any form of violence with his clients. He points out that there are many co-factors that lead to acts of violence, including media exposure.

This video is approximately five minutes in length. For more information about Channel Marker and its program please go here.

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Spy Chat: Small Colleges and Historic Restorations with Davy McCall

December 2, 2019 by Dave Wheelan

As noted in the Spy’s obituary today, Professor Davy McCall passed away this weekend at the age of 97. The former U.S. State Department and USAID international expert for both Asia and the Middle East first arrived in Kent County in 1968, where he eventually joined the Washington College faculty and later became chair of the economics department.

At the urging of mutual friends, I was able to finally sit down with Davy at Heron Point on November 1 for a free-range conversation about his life and career. It is an extraordinary story of a gifted intellectual from the prosperous suburb of Shaker Heights in Cleveland, through Kenyon College, a Ph.D. from Harvard, and decades of finding himself in the center of foreign affairs in both China and later Syria.

In our interview, Davy talks fondly of his time at Washington College, his passion for historical restoration, and his love of Chestertown.

This video is approximately seven minutes in length

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