Annual Conference Institutes

The Magic of Forgiveness: Small-Scale Techniques and Ways of Incorporating Them into Your Practice

Presenters:
Kenneth Cloke, Center for Dispute Resolution, Santa Monica, CA
Eileen Barker, Barker Mediation, San Rafael, CA

Panelists:
Michael Aloi, Manchin & Aloi, Fairmont, WV
Nan Waller Burnett, Dispute Resolution Professionals, Inc., Golden, CO
Louise Phipps Senft, Baltimore Mediation, Baltimore, MD

Forgiveness is a simple, yet powerful transformative tool, and the doorway to inner and outer peace. Forgiveness can be large or small, and be integrated into every kind of mediation practice. Forgiveness enables people to release whatever is keeping them trapped in their conflicts and to experience a deeper level of resolution. Experience the power of forgiveness in releasing conflict as we explore simple and practical ways of adding forgiveness techniques to your conflict resolution practice. This interactive day will include:

An overview and theoretical explanation of the sources and dynamics of forgiveness and how forgiveness fits into conflict resolution as a whole

A panel of seasoned practitioners discussing how they work with forgiveness in mediation

We are in a recession and consumers are looking for ways to reduce cost, yet conflicts are on the raise. In fact, the origins of some conflicts can be traced to the recession itself. It is the savvy business owner who has learned to weather the storm and, in some cases, come out stronger on the other side. This two-part Pre-Conference Institute will provide practical information to recession proof your business. While the two sessions are designed to be taken together, each session stands on its own and can be taken separately. Don’t miss this hands-on interactive institute. Bring your ideas, problems, and be ready to work.

This session will deal with areas which are essential for a business to be successful during a recession or anytime. Topics to be covered include:

This interactive session will include enlightening narratives and small group brainstorming. The session will help you explore advanced business development ideas and tools to identify your business roadblocks. It also will help you find the courage to forge new paths. You will leave with a toolbox of specific actions, resources for additional guidance and exciting new possibilities for business growth.

Open and expand your world of technology! As travel and professional development budgets shrink and potential clients have less money to spend, finding ways to reduce costs and improve services is essential. While most conflict resolution professionals are aware of the power of the internet, they may not know the range of free and easy-to-use tools available to harness that power to develop their practice. As more clients, professionals, and staff become technologically savvy, it is important to be aware of these tools, how to use them, and when and how they might save time and money.

This session is a broad introduction to a wide range of available applications. (Examples are not an endorsement of these products, but are products with which the presenters have experience.) Potential uses will be demonstrated by dividing the applications into several categories: information sharing, communication facilitation and planning, and the gathering of feedback. Applications for information sharing include free websites, blogging, pdf creator, and office-style suites (word processing, presentation software, spreadsheet, and video). Applications for communication facilitation and planning allow users to be in immediate contact with one another by voice, video, and/or text, or asynchronously planning for schedules or meetings with select shared groups. Applications for feedback include a range of in-line survey tools, most of which have free trials or surveys. The presenters will demonstrate the use of these programs. Tools can be used to work with clients, better organize a small office, communicate more efficiently with volunteers, provide training documents and get feedback from training participants without additional printing or mailing costs. For example, using Skype, allows participants who cannot physically attend a training to attend on-line. In addition, trainers can use Illuminate to host an on-line training, or meeting (e.g., local ACR chapters). Presenters will provide introductions to and examples of teaching, training, practice, and research applications of several publicly available, on-line applications which also include Survey Monkey, webs.com, a range of Google applications, and other easy to use (and primarily free) software. Bring your laptop!

Presenters:

Sheryl Wilson, Southern Truth and Reconciliation, Atlanta, GA

Theophus Smith, Southern Truth and Reconciliation, Atlanta, GA

Meredith Gould, Southern Truth and Reconciliation, Atlanta, GA

The restorative justice movement in the U.S. South is currently addressing the legacy of racial/ethnic violence through a representative coalition of community organizations – the Alliance for Truth & Racial Reconciliation (ATRR). This Pre-Conference Institute will focus on best practices that enable truth and reconciliation advocates to integrate conflicted and polarized sectors of the community and foster an inclusive ethos in which “we the people” collectively are “restoring justice” together. Specifically, how does the practice of inviting, collecting, and archiving people’s stories – through oral histories, focus groups, secured statement-taking and skilled interviews – and across a diverse range of citizens, stakeholders and opinion makers, achieve a “multiplier effect” of providing the basis for a broad spectrum of restorative justice initiatives throughout a community? This can occur through commemorative events and educational programs to public forums and selected features of the more structured truth and reconciliation commissions.

Panelists will chronicle their group’s restorative justice profile and track record in communities conflicted by a legacy of racial/ethnic violence. Self-diagnoses will expose the challenge of holistic organizing and then dovetail into break-out groups in which researchers/facilitators proffer more inclusive solutions. Evaluation, asking questions such as, “How would we know whether or when a critical mass of citizens is engaged?” will follow progress reports on the “multiplier effect” resulting from the collection and archiving of a representative spectrum of stories and statements across entire communities.

Pre-Conference Institute D

D. Advanced Family Mediation - “Irrational” Mediators and “Irrational” People: Managing “Messy” Brains and Messy Family Matters

Presenter:

Robert Benjamin, Mediation and Conflict Management Services, Portland, OR

This advanced training institute will focus on the more problematic issues that face practitioners in the management of conflict in family and divorce matters from the perspective of recent studies in neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, and behavioral economics. Those inquiries challenge many of the basic working premises of the prevailing rationalist models of mediation which typically assume parties are rational actors and mediators are ‘above the fray’ and ‘objective neutrals.’ Topics may include managing high conflict, dealing with impasse and creative problem solving, examining the role and biases of third parties, and professional and ethical concerns. The style of the session will be interactive and the focus interactive institute will be on the application of theory to direct practice strategies, techniques, and skills will include.

Introduction to general principles of neuroscience and the functioning of the ‘messy’ human brain
An understanding of marriage and divorce from an evolutionary perspective
Awareness of manifestations of ‘predictable irrationality’ in human decision making and problem solving
Consideration of techniques to manage the predictable irrationality and biases of the mediator
Consideration of strategies, techniques and skills to engage, harness and use to advantage the predictable irrationality of parties in divorce or family matters

E. Got Games? Simple Strategies for Creating High Impact Training Activities

Games can be a powerful and engaging way to demonstrate and build the capacity for creativity in your mediation, coaching, or training sessions. Sivasailam Thiagarajan states, “A good facilitator plays ‘within’ the rules of a game, while a great facilitator plays ‘with’ the rules of the game.” Are the tools in your training toolbox feeling old, worn out, too familiar, no longer effective? Do you want to set yourself apart from other conflict resolution professionals who rely exclusively on traditional training approaches?

If you are looking to breathe creative life into your mediation, training and coaching sessions – and you’re not afraid to take some risks and have some fun – then this workshop is for you! Discover simple, imaginative and practical templates for designing your own high-impact learning games. Design and practice the facilitation of at least one original and useable learning game to add to your training toolbox.

Nina Meierding, Negotiation and Mediation Training Services, Bainbridge Island, WA

Since every mediation has its own unique characteristics and life, even experienced mediators have a need to learn new and creatively applied methods of breaking impasse. This interactive workshop will focus on what causes resistance in negotiation and how to use specific impasse-breaking techniques. Obstacles such as boulwarism, single text documents, mismanagement of expectations, externalities, emotionality, cognitive overload, and timing will be explored. Customized impasse strategies can be tailored to the specific cause of resistance. This workshop is for participants who have had previous mediation training.