Basic Mediation Course Descriptions

BASIC MEDIATION COURSE DESCRIPTIONS

Forty-Hour Basic Mediation (five days)
This course offers basic mediation training through role-playing, lectures, exercises, case histories, and demonstrations of disputes and dispute resolution. This training is designed for human resources professionals, attorneys, counselors, and other professionals whose work involves resolving disagreements. Role-play scenarios will focus on conflicts involving employment, civil rights, contracts, and more.

Dispute Resolution Specialist Training (four days)
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.

Advanced Mediation (four days)
The purpose of “Advanced Mediation” is to equip neutrals with advanced mediation and other ADR skills to take them beyond basic proficiency in mediation, 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.

Advanced Questioning Techniques (three days)
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.

More Than a Party of Two: Mediating Multi-Party and Class Action Disputes (two days)
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.

Advanced Caucus Techniques (one day)
“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.

Impasse Handling Strategies for the ADR Professional (one day)
Have you ever wondered how to create forward movement in facilitating the resolution of seemingly irresolvable 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.

Understanding Culture and Gender in ADR Processes (one day)
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.

Problem Solving Skills for Mediators (one day)
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.

Mediating with Angry Parties (one day)
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.

Identifying Core Issues in Mediation (one day)
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.

Communicating for Success in Strength and Adversity (one day)
This course provides participants with the unique opportunity to consider how they communicate when things are going well, how their communication style changes when things aren’t going well, and how to make the most of communication under both circumstances! The Strength Deployment Inventory (SDI) is used as a tool to help participants understand their communication tendencies in a variety of relational settings. Additional modules can be added to translate these principles into a variety of roles such as mediator or manager.

The Role of Emotional Intelligence in Mediation (one day)
What is emotional intelligence? What is the role of emotional intelligence in mediation? Mediators will learn how to use their own emotional intelligence and how to maximize the emotional intelligence of others in mediation.

Workplace Mediation Role Play Workshop (one day)
This workshop is designed to give mediators the opportunity to re-calibrate their practice of mediation. Participants will review the mediation process, the goals of each stage of the process and participate in challenging role-plays to develop and fine-tune skills.

Facilitating Competencies in Mediation (one day)
What role does the mediator have in determining the competency of participants in mediation? How can mediators assess competency within their role as impartial facilitator, and facilitate in such as way that each party is able to participate as competently as they can? This course is for advanced mediators only.

Constructive Conversations: Coaching, Collaborating, and Giving & Receiving Feedback
(two days)
“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.

Specialty Courses

Mediating ADA Title I Disputes
This course provides advanced training for experienced mediators of disputes involving title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Through instruction and supervised role-playing, participants will learn the basic provisions of title I and how to help people with disabilities, employers, and government agencies resolve disputes about reasonable accommodations in the workplace. A one-day program.

Mediating ADA Title III Disputes
This course offers advanced training for experienced mediators of disputes involving title III of the ADA . Through lectures, demonstrations, exercises, and role-playing, participants will learn not only about title III, but about the advantages of using mediation to resolve disagreements involving public accommodations and persons with disabilities. A one-day program.

Mediating Special Education Disputes
The 1997 reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) encourages the use of mediation in special education, and this course provides a head start in learning a process that all states are required to implement. Even parent-advocates and school administrators can benefit from understanding the mediation process. A one-day program.

Mediation and ADR: Skill-Building for Lawyers
Today’s lawyers need a mastery of mediation and other ADR processes. This course is designed to provide an introduction to negotiation, mediation, neutral evaluation, summary jury trial, convening, and other ADR processes. Participants will develop skills in mediation and negotiation, learn how to find effective and trustworthy ADR providers, and receive coaching in how to represent clients in ADR processes. A three-day program.

Trainings are offered by the Key Bridge Foundation in conjunction with PR Maida Mediation Associates.