Conflict Resolution & ADR Training

Peninsula Mediation & ADR presents quality alternative dispute resolution training programs. Our neutrals are graduate degreed professionals with extensive training and experience in specialty areas within the field of alternative dispute resolution. Our training courses are highly interactive in format and designed to stimulate awareness and skills developed in the area of conflict handling for the adult learner. Course instruction includes lecture, discussion, exercises, role plays, videotapes, and in some cases videotaped student evaluations. Courses may be customized to meet the needs of your workforce and organization. Some courses carry certification credit for Department of Navy mediator certification or for Supreme Court of Virginia. Past participants in our trainings include: Department of Navy, Department of Army, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Veterans Administration, NASA, EEOC personnel, state and local governments, hospital staffs, public safety agencies, universities and school districts, and private corporations.

Please select from the following list to learn more:

Length:	2 Days
Students:	8 min / 25 max
Description:	“Constructive Conversations: Coaching, Collaborating, and Giving and Receiving Feedback” focuses on principles and skills required for effective interpersonal communication and conflict prevention in the workplace. Regardless of who is communicating and who initiates the communication (manager or report), these principles and skills apply. Principles for constructive conversation will be learned through developing actual conversational skills within each of four modules. The objectives contained within these modules are: * Understanding one’s communication and conflict managing responses; * Using a practical framework to construct conversations; * Practicing communication skills required for successful conversations; * Learning principles and techniques for coaching for performance success; * Learning how to collaborate for mutual gain; and, * Developing effective ways to give and receive feedback.

Length:	30 hours / 4 days
Students:	8 min / 25 max
Description:	This course covers much of the same material highlighted in "Mediation in Employment Settings" but includes additional material of interest to labor relations personnel. Role plays and exercises are geared particularly for this group of learners to help them develop mediation proficiency in their unique context.

Length:	30 hours / 4 days
Students:	8 min / 25 max
Description:	This unique ADR overview course provides students with an understanding of four processes for resolving workplace disputes: mediation, conciliation, early neutral inquiry, and the neutral settlement conference. Students learn the basics of each of these processes and the contexts in which each process is most effective. Basic mediation training is a prerequisite.

Length:	30 hours / 4 days
Students:	8 min / 25 max
Description:	The purpose of "Advanced Mediation" is to equip neutrals with advanced mediation and other ADR skills to take them beyond basic proficiency in mediatin, conciliation, early neutral inquiry, and the neutral settlement conference. Advanced issues such as complex cases, impasse handling, and the roles of culture and gender in ADR processes is included. Extensive role plays help students develop in-depth skills. Basic mediation training is a prerequisite; mediation or other ADR experience is also recommended.

Length:	21 hours / 3 days
Students:	8 min / 25 max
Description:	Do you have supervisors and managers who want mediation skills but don't intend to serve as mediators? This course focuses on developing an awareness of conflict handling and the skills development that managers and supervisors need. Course content includes a basic awareness of conflict; individual and organizational conflict handling styles; dispute systems design; effective communication skills for conflict handling; skills at work in face-to-face negotiation; skills at work when facilitating problem solving; and skills at work in advocacy situations.

Length:	21 hours / 3 days
Students:	8 min / 25 max
Description:	This course is one-of-a-kind and designed to help dual-role personnel professionals develop advanced communication skills to enhance role effectiveness. Originally designed for EEO counselors who also serve as mediators, course content could be modified to meet the needs of most dual-role professionals. Course content focuses on an in-depth understanding of questions and interviewing techniques, their strategic use, and important differences in usage depending upon the role of the professional. The third day of the course involves participants in an extensive video-taped self-evaluation.

Length:	16 hours / 2 days
Students:	8 min / 25 max
Description:	Most mediators begin practice on relatively simple disputes-few issues and few parties. How do mediators effectively modify the mediation process to lead multiple disputants involved in complex disputes from "no" to "yes"? The first day of the course focuses on the unique dynamics of multi-party disputes, and the second day concentrates on the nature of class action disputes and the techniques necessary to facilitate resolution.

Length:	8 hours / 1 day
Students:	8 min / 25 max
Description:	Can you mediate sexual harassment disputes? Is it ever appropriate? The answers are complex-sometimes "yes", and sometimes "no." Seasoned mediators will tell you that many of these cases are excellent candidates for mediation! This course helps ADR professionals screen cases for possible appropriateness, and provide experience in mediating these unique cases. Prior mediation training is a prerequisite.

Length:	8 hours / 1 day
Students:	8 min / 25 max
Description:	So, your organization offers a variety of means for employees to resolve disputes, but how does the employee make a process choice? If you counsel employees about an array of ADR choices for resolving employment disputes this course is a must! You are the linchpin between the employee and the dispute resolution; your knowledge of the processes you offer, and the way you counsel the employee, will enable employees to make informed dispute resolution choices as well as insure program success! The one-day course option is for employees who have prior ADR training; the two-day option is for those with little or no prior ADR training.

Length:	8 hours / 1 day
Students:	8 min / 25 max
Description:	"To caucus, or not to caucus," is that the question? Is caucus actually a stage in the mediation process, or a tool that mediators and other neutrals use on an as needed basis? These questions and more are answered in this one day examination of the caucus and its effective use in ADR processes.

Length:	8 hours / 1 day
Students:	8 min / 25 max
Description:	Culture and gender are not only features that make each of us unique, but often operate at levels that evade the understanding of others. What roles do culture and gender play in ADR processes? This course raises awareness among participants of the opportunities that culture and gender provide in resolving disputes.

Length:	8 hours / 1 day
Students:	8 min / 25 max
Description:	Have you ever wondered how to create forward movement in facilitating the resolution of seemingly unresolvable issues? Have you ever experienced a time in your ADR practice when participants just couldn't seem to reach resolution? This course is for you! "Impasse Handling Strategies..." provides a strategic approach to impasse handling that will increase your effectiveness as a neutral.

Length:	8 hours / 1 day
Students:	8 min / 25 max
Description:	Mentoring services are provided for neutrals learning the following processes: Mediation, conciliation, early neutral inquiry, and neutral settlement conference facilitation. Such services are collaborative and facilitative in design and require the mentor to participate in establishing learning goals as well as self-evaluation of proficiency. The Mentor also provides written evaluations of performance upon conclusion of each case and debriefs the mentor as part of the evaluation process.

Length:	4 hours / 1 day
Students:	8 min / 25 max
Description:	This course provides ADR students and professionals with an opportunity to consider the application of ACR's model standards of practice within the workplace context. Topics such as the nature of ethics and best practice, conflict of interest, confidentiality and exceptions, perceptions of impartiality, disclosure requirements, etc. are discussed in a highly interactive format involving case studies, video analysis, and discussion. This course meets the requirements for Department of Navy mediator certification.

Length:	1 day
Students:	8 min / 25 max
Description:	This eight-hour course is designed to engage managers and employees in diagnosing and understanding their communication strengths and weaknesses using the Strength Deployment Inventory (SDI). The SDI has been used successfully in workplace settings for several decades. The SDI measures an individual's communication style under circumstances when things are going well, and how that individual's style shifts under adverse conditions. Students learn no only about their individual styles, but also how their styles interact with those of others in the workplace or workgroup through exercise and role plays. Participants take away a measurable understanding about how they communicate and establish goals to maximize their communication strengths and improve their weaknesses.

Length:	1 day
Students:	8 min / 25 max
Description:	If the greatest part of communication is listening, why do we have so much difficulty with it? The eight hour course provide managers with an understanding of the listening process, obstacles to effective listening, and how to improve listening skills. Participants take away a better understanding of their own listening style and preferences as well as goals for improving their listening skills in the greater context of effective communication.

Length:	3 days
Students:	8 min / 25 max
Description:	This three-day course equips managers with training to improve their negotiation skills in the workplace context. Throughout each workday we engage in numerous negotiations--logistics, tasks, roles, power, conflict management--and yet few of us feel particularly well equipped or effective in our roles as negotiators. Participants learn about models and styles of negotiation behavior, effective collaborative negotiation behavior, and how to use an interest-based model for negotiation in their every day duties as managers. This course requires significant student participation in exercises, role plays, and discussion.

Length:	8 Hours
Students:	8 min / 25 max
Description:	Effective mediations require the constructive involvement of all involved--the person who brought the dispute to the table, the mediator, AND the person representing the interests of the agency of business. Mediation is facilitated negotiation, and each "side" of the dispute equation can improve their experience in the process as well as their outcomes if they have a clearer understanding of the mediation process, how to participate effectively in collaborative negotiations, and how to negotiate winning resolutions for all involved in the mediation.

Length:	1 day
Students:	8 min / 25 max
Description:	Mediation provides an opportunity for disputing parties to not only “settle” their dispute, but to actually resolve the problems that exist between them. . . .IF it is facilitated with a focus on problem solving! The course acquaints mediators with the Problem Solving Decision Making Model and its use in the context of mediation. Participants learn how to facilitate problem solving and to boost creative thinking in the context of mediation.

Length:	1 day
Students:	8 min / 25 max
Description:	Many mediators worry about how to handle angry clients. Experienced mediators often become curious when clients are too calm and unemotional. This course helps mediators understand the role of anger in conflict, the nature of angry behavior, and provides guidelines for managing anger and defusing hostility. Participants practice specific techniques for managing angry parties during mediation.

Length:	1 day
Students:	8 min / 25 max
Description:	It is not unusual for disputing parties to have difficulty identifying the real problems that exist between them. They tend to become reactive as each new conflict episode captures their attention, and it only gets more difficult over time to remember what the core of the dispute actually is! This course equips mediators with “must have” practical skills for effective problem identification/diagnosis and related resolution in mediation.

Length:	4 hours
Students:	8 min / 25 max
Description:	This brief course is designed to provide managers with the basics on how they can be more effective in handling conflict in their workplace. Participants learn tools for resolving conflict directly with employees, when and how to involve a neutral third party such as a mediator, and then how to participate effectively in an ADR process such as mediation. Finally, this course provides organizations with a platform for educating managers about conflict handling options that are available to employees at their organization, and how to choose and use ADR.

Length:	4 hours
Students:	8 min / 25 max
Description:	Have you ever wondered what you can do to increase the opportunity for resolution in mediation? While mediators don’t have the authority to impose resolution on disputants, we do have the responsibility to facilitate at a level of competency that gives them the greatest opportunity possible for them to reach a resolution. Learn about common barriers to agreement and strategies for overcoming them.

Length:	4 hours
Students:	8 min / 25 max
Description:	When participants fail to reach agreement in mediation it is often because they couldn’t find options to which they could say “yes.” Learn about the role of option generation in a variety of negotiation contexts and practice new formats for generating and evaluating options.

Length:	4 hours
Students:	8 min / 25 max
Description:	If the majority of Americans are visual learners, why don’t mediators appeal more to the visual in mediation? Many of us are uncomfortable with everything from our handwriting and spelling to the quality of our graphics. Learn from a pro how to use visuals simply and effectively in the context of mediation!

Length:	12 hours
Students:	8 min / 25 max
Description:	This course is designed to give employees the basic skills necessary to facilitate effective group discussion in their workplace. Participants will learn about:<BR> <BR> * Group Basics<BR> * Models of Facilitation<BR> * Neutrals--Roles, Responsibilities, and Personal Characteristics<BR> * Must-Have Communication Skills<BR> * Meetings Effectiveness and Formats<BR> * Facilitation Resources<BR>

Length:	2 days
Students:	8 min / 25 max
Description:	“Constructive Conversations: Coaching, Collaborating, and Giving and Receiving Feedback” focuses on principles and skills required for effective interpersonal communication and conflict prevention in the workplace. Regardless of who is communicating and who initiates the communication (manager or report), these principles and skills apply. Principles for constructive conversation will be learned through developing actual conversational skills within each of four modules. The objectives contained within these modules are:<BR> <BR> * Understanding one’s communication and conflict managing responses;<BR> * Using a practical framework to construct conversations;<BR> * Practicing communication skills required for successful conversations;<BR> * Learning principles and techniques for coaching for performance success;<BR> * Learning how to collaborate for mutual gain; and,<BR> * Developing effective ways to give and receive feedback.<BR>