Biography

Kate Kerman is a mediator, trainer, educator and mentor. She began mediating in 1988 as a faculty member at The Meeting School, where mediation and restorative discipline is used in a small alternative school community. When she left The Meeting School in 1996 to establish the Phoenix Farm Learning Center, she took the Cheshire Mediation parent/youth mediation training and began volunteering on parent/youth cases. She joined the staff of Cheshire Mediation in the winter of 1999, and acts as the Coordinator of Youth Programs. This includes coordinating the parent/youth mediation program and the Peer Mediation Program at Keene High School, as well as conducting trainings for other schools in the area. She has taught conflict resolution skills to children and adults of all ages.

Kate graduated from Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1977, with a major in education and a minor in sociology. She spent the next 7 years concentrating on teaching her three children at home and writing about home schooling. She and her husband Ed followed their oldest daughter to The Meeting School in the summer of 1988, where they houseparented up to 8 teenagers at a time in a family-style setting where everyone was involved in cooking meals and cleaning the house. Kate taught all subject areas and was heaviliy involved in using mediation to resolve interpersonal disputes and disciplinary issues.

Since leaving The Meeting School in 1996, Kate and Ed have established The Phoenix Farm Learning Center and have lived there with up to 5 teenagers, children and young adults at a time in an informal farm community setting designed to give young people an opportunity to develop their skills and learn to live well with others. In that time, Kate has assisted 5 teenagers to graduate high school through individualized home schooling programs, and has helped older young adults find ways to follow interests and passions ranging from veterinary technology to carpentry and fiber crafts.

Kate can be reached at 603-357-9673.