Mediation Center of Eastern Carolina/Teen Court

The Mediation Center of Eastern Carolina (MCEC) is a nonprofit organization incorporated in 1989. MCEC has designed and implemented programs to help youth, families, and adult community members resolve conflict. These programs focus on respecting and appreciating differences while problem solving.

What is Teen Court? Teen Court is an alternative, restorative system of justice, which offers juveniles who cause harm through minor misdemeanor offenses an opportunity to take responsibility for their offenses through community service and other educational opportunities assigned by a jury of their peers. Volunteers must be in grades 6-12 and enrolled in a District Public, Private, Charter or Homeschool.

Youth who volunteer for Teen Court are given an active role in their community, recive education in the functions and operations of the judicial system, and they work together toward the same goal: helping to restore their peers back into their community with hope, and filled with new skills and ways of thinking about things, that can carry them through to their future. Volunteers are trained as attorneys, clerks, bailiffs, and most important: jury members. They are also trained in Restorative Justice Circle processes which, instead of treating "a criminal act as a mere violation of a rule or law, it acknowledges the harm caused to individuals and relationships. The primary focus of restorative justice is to repair the harm caused by a crime while holding the offender accountable for their actions. This accountability involves accepting responsibility and taking measures to make amends for the harm caused." *

*https://ncteencourts.org/restorative-justice/