The first recipient of the "Martin Blum Community Mediation Award" was the Ramsey County Cooperation for the Children Program. Martin Blum, who was DRC's first Executive Director, was instrumental in the development not only of DRC but also of community mediation in Minnesota.   The Cooperation for the Children Program assists families who are experiencing disputes regarding visitation matters in a non-adversarial manner.  Created following the recommendations of a 1997 MN Supreme Court Advisory Task Force, the program uses alternative dispute resolution methods such as mediation and visitation expediting to assist parents to make their own decisions regarding the needs of their children.

Adversarial processes often negatively impact children and families. The Program assists parents in making their own agreements about their children's well being, helping to reduce the conflict and hostility that often accompany visitation disputes.  CFC also minimizes the negative consequence of the dispute for children and improves voluntary compliance with visitation orders, thus greatly reducing the need for enforcement actions and the court resources devoted to such actions.  CFC helps children, parents, and the courts. 

The program alleviates some of the family court caseload and decreases participants' legal and court cost in general. Fees for the program are set on a sliding scale, making the program both affordable for the parents and cost-effective for the courts.   CFC cases are regularly referred to DRC's volunteer family mediators, as well as to Catholic Charities and the Mediation Center for Dispute Resolution at Hamline University.   

Unfortunately, this significant pilot program has been told that it will close in June of 2003.  DRC acknowledged CFC's many significant accomplishments and Program Director Cynthia Campbell Waters with this