Conflict Resolution Program at IPA

Conflict is not inherently bad.

It is often just a sign that change is needed, is coming, or has already happened.

Conflict Management is the use of processes, tools, and skills to manage disagreements and disputes. It includes the ability to resolve conflict collaboratively through effective communication skills, such as active listening and assertive speaking.

Individuals can increase their conflict competence through skills-based training, coaching, and having leaders who walk the talk.

Direct intervention from conflict resolution practitioners can help organizations become more adept at addressing conflict and developing conflict-competent employees.

Successful leaders recognize the importance of these skills and the impact they have on their organization's health and productivity. Unresolved conflict can lead to poor morale, decreased productivity, and low retention rates among employees. The cost of developing conflict-competent employees is a fraction of the cost of unresolved conflict.  

BUILD YOUR CONFLICT Management skills

We offer workshops that help individuals, teams, and organizations increase their ability to recognize and manage conflict.

Our customized Conflict Management Trainings can improve your conflict competence and increase your capacity to strategically address interpersonal conflict.

Before Conflict

• Recognize the types and causes of conflict
• Understand the five conflict management styles
• See conflict as an opportunity for change

During Conflict

• Be aware of perceptions, attitudes, and biases
• Manage emotions
• Use active listening and assertive speaking
• Distinguish a person's wants from needs
  
• Utilize collaborative problem-solving

After Conflict

• Build confidence and self-awareness
• Develop mutual understanding, trust, and respect
• Create sustainable solutions
• Repair and maintain relationships

We all face uncomfortable situations.

Whether it's at a conference table, dinner table, or virtual table, we all eventually face uncomfortable situations or topics that we have to address with people we care about. While you can choose to avoid having discussions altogether, being able to successfully navigate a difficult conversation can bring about positive change and save relationships.

What are Difficult Conversations?

A difficult conversation is a planned discussion about an uncomfortable topic or a negative experience where the goal is to share different perspectives, build mutual understanding, and develop respect (not to persuade or "win"). While it's common to want to avoid these conversations, doing so can lead to stress, resentment toward others, and an escalated conflict that becomes harder to resolve. Addressing them skillfully can help strengthen relationships.

Having a difficult conversation is an opportunity to...

• Shed light on how to resolve a problem
• Embrace constructive change
• Gain a deeper understanding
• Repair relationships

The key to navigating difficult conversations is to develop and practice effective communication skills. These skills include active listening, assertive speaking, asking good questions, and acknowledging emotions. 

While having a difficult conversation, it's important to be...

• Willing to listen to other perspectives seriously and respectfully
• Open to adjusting our own perceptions when we are exposed to new information
• Realistic and fair with our expectations 

Need to have a difficult conversation?

Check out these resources that we've created to help you do it yourself. 

• A Guide to Having Difficult Conversations — How to prepare for, execute, and conclude a difficult conversation.
• Dealing with Difficult Personalities — Identifying the nine difficult personality types, how they make us feel, and how to cope with them all themed to everyone's favorite workplace comedies: The Office and Parks and Rec.

Additional Resources

Check out these resources for more information about difficult conversations.

• Conversation Agreements (Living Room Conversations) — Establish a conversation agreement, sometimes called ground rules, to foster effective communication.
• Effective Communication Strategies (University of Waterloo) — Learn about barriers to listening and strategies for active listening.
• We have to talk. A step-by-step checklist of difficult conversations (Judy Ringer) — Try this step-by-step checklist for difficult conversations.

What is Restorative Justice?

Restorative justice is an approach to resolving conflict that is built on the values of respect, responsibility, and relationship. Restorative justice is different than traditional approaches to justice. Instead of ignoring victims and isolating offenders it focuses on the needs of the victim, promotes accountability from the offender, and empowers both to grow from the experience.

Restorative practices have deep roots in indigenous communities. Healing the harmed and rehabilitating the offender is the philosophy of indigenous peacemaking. These communities believed that they could right a wrong and restore harmony by talking to one another. Indigenous elders help their communities resolve disputes, repair relationships, and restore harmony by leading conversations that uncover:

• Who has been hurt?
• What are their needs?
• Who is obligated to fulfill those needs or right this wrong?

There are a number of restorative practices that are being used in both criminal and community settings. While the methods are different, the key values of restorative justice remain. The three core restorative justice practices, according to Living Justice Press, are circle dialogue, victim-offender mediation/conferencing, and family group conferencing. Each of these practices has a specific structure and process and is delivered by a trained practitioner. At their core, these practices bring people together to:

• Share their experiences,
• Hear the experiences of others,
• Repair any harm caused, and
• Develop a deeper understanding and respect for one another.

These practices can be used to address conflicts in the criminal justice system, communities, families, education, and workplaces. In addition to resolving conflicts, these practices can help groups share information, create connections, build trust, and develop a sense of community.

What kind of Restorative Justice work have we done?

Recently, the Conflict Resolution Program (CRP) has partnered with local organizations to bring restorative justice practices to Delawareans. Through these partnerships, we have been able to work directly with teens facing mental health, substance abuse, and disciplinary challenges, and their families. CRP has also made presentations and conducted workshops for organizations and the public.

Circles of Understanding with Justice-Involved Youth

In collaboration with the Delaware Center for Justice (DCJ), CRP delivered a series of Circles of Understanding for students participating in the School Offense Diversion Program (SoDP) in the spring of 2019. SoDP is a diversion program for students arrested for an in-school incident that provides students with opportunities to grow and learn from the experience so their first interaction with the criminal justice system is also their last. Take a detailed look at our work with DCJ and SoDP.

Circle of Support with Aquila of Delaware Staff and Clients

Staff Circle

In January 2020, the Conflict Resolution Program (CRP) partnered with Aquila of Delaware, an organization that provides treatment services to adolescents and young adults suffering from psychiatric and substance abuse disorders, to provide a restorative justice experience. CRP was asked to facilitate a Dialogue Circle with Aquila's staff as both an introduction to the circle process and an opportunity to experience it before utilizing it with their youth clients. Read more about this partnership and its impact.

Youth Circle

In partnership with Aquila of Delaware, CRP facilitated a Circle during the organization's weekly group therapy session for teen clients. Staff wanted to shake-up their usual session format and provide the teens with a new was to interact and share with each other. CRP designed a Circle that aligned with the group's monthly theme of family and history and brought the teens together to reflect and share their definition of and role in their families.

Circle Dialogue Training

CRP partnered with Jennifer Clement, a respected and experienced restorative justice practitioner and trainer, and Director of the Educere Institute at Children's Beach House, to deliver a one-day training on Circle Dialogue in June 2019. The training introduced the practice as a tool for conversation that increases group participation and collaboration, creates a space that welcomes diversity, builds community, and fosters understanding and respect. CRP trained 21 participants from variety of backgrounds and fields including education, justice, transportation, housing, and a variety of non-profit organizations.

What can we do for you?

As trained and experienced trainers, mediators and facilitators, we bring restorative justice principles into all of the work we do. We help groups identify their organizational needs and goals and work together to develop a plan for reaching those goals through research, training, and direct service. 

Additional Resources

For more information about restorative justice principles, practices, and applications, check out these resources.

About Restorative Justice Practices

• What is Restorative Practices? (International Institute for Restorative Practices)
• About the Circle Dialogue Process (Living Justice Press)
  
• "Peacebuilding through Restorative Justice Dialogue" (Center for Restorative Justice and Peacemaking)

Restorative Justice Applications

• Restorative Circles: Creating a Safe Environment for Students to Reflect (Edutopia) 
  
• Using Dialogue Circles to Support Classroom Management (Edutopia)
  

Restorative Justice Organizations

• Center for Justice and Reconciliation
  
• Center for Restorative Justice and Peacemaking
  
• International Institute for Restorative Practices
  
• Living Justice Press
  
• National Association of Community and Restorative Justice

Introduction

We all experience disagreements with the people around us, and we're often able to work through them. Sometimes, conflicts escalate and become too complex for us to handle on our own, so we look to an outsider to help. Turning to police, lawyers, or the judicial system is one way to get a resolution, but not the only one.

What is Mediation?

Mediation is a safe, confidential, and voluntary process that brings disputing parties together to work through their differences. Mediation is an alternative dispute resolution process that is ideal for resolving conflicts between individuals who have ongoing relationships. These include family disputes that involve the care of an elder, divorce, custody and family-owned businesses. It also includes disputes in the workplace, in neighborhoods, in schools, and between landlords and tenants.

The mediation process empowers parties to air their concerns, deal with emotions, and find mutually agreeable solutions with the help of an impartial mediator. Our mediation model is built on empowerment, recognition, and self-determination, which means the parties determine the outcome of the mediation.  

In mediation, a trained, impartial mediator guides parties through the mediation process while helping them to talk with one another. The mediator facilitates a conversation that allows the parties to air their concerns, express their emotions, and listen to one another. This process is effective because it promotes dialogue, understanding, and outcomes that work for sides.

Mediation can:

• Turn a difficult conversation into a productive dialogue
• Peel away the layers of confusion to get to the core of the conflict
• Empower disputing parties to air their concerns, deal with emotions, and find mutually agreeable solutions
  

What can we do for you?

Our mediators serve as impartial third parties to assist disputing parties to make their own decisions and evaluate their own situations. Agreements and outcomes are determined by the parties—not the mediator. Mediation is quicker, less expensive, confidential, voluntary, flexible, and less adversarial when compared to the legal resolution process that involves attorneys and courts. More importantly, mediation empowers the parties to take responsibility for the dispute and the outcome.​​

Resources

The Conflict Resolution Program's Basic Mediation Training focuses on community mediation using a facilitative process. The following resources provide more information in these areas to supplement the explanations and discussions during the training.

Mediation

• Why Mediation Matters​​ (Podcast Episode)
  
• What to Look for in a Basic Mediation Training
• What Facilitative Mediation Has to Offer
• Mediation: Why Distinguish Between Models?
• Facilitative Mediation: The classic approach retains its appeal
• 3 Things that Mediation is Not
• The What of Mediation: When is Mediation the Right Process Choice?

Mediators

• The Role of a Mediator
• Mediator Neutrality: How is it Possible?
• 10 Things I've Learned From Being a Mediator
• Mediators Ethics Guidelines
• Mediating in the Shadow of Faith: Personal Beliefs, The BATNA Analysis, and Dealmaking
• Mediator and Party Reflections (Video)
• Reflecting on Mediator Practice (Video)
• Addressing Capacity: What is the Role of the Mediator?
• Mediatees Have The Right To Make 'Bad' Decisions

Agenda

• Agenda: Language and Interruptions (Video)
• Agenda: Structure and Interruptions (Video)

Opening Statement

• Sample of a Mediator's Opening Statement
• Opening Statement (Video)
• Ground Rules

Mediator Skills

• The Art and Science of Summarization in Mediation
• Get Curious! Asking Open-Ended Questions
  
• Control Emotions Better by Labeling Them
  
• Kickboxing Provides a Lesson for Mediators
  
• Using Neuroscience to Understand Stress and Improve Mediation

Conflict Resolution

• The Joy of Impasse: The Neuroscience of "Insight" and Creative Problem Solving
  
• We Have to Talk: A Step-by-Step Checklist for Difficult Conversations
  
• Negotiations (Video)
• Negotiation, Part 3
• Negotiating Like a Woman: How Gender Impacts Communication between the Sexes

General Resources

• Mediate.com
• Association for Conflict Resolution
• The National Academy of Distinguished Neutrals
• International Mediation Institute
• International Academy of Mediators
• Academy of Professional Family Mediators
• Mediation.org

When run effectively, meetings are a productive tool to help groups convene, share ideas, and move forward toward goals. However, we often experience meetings that are unorganized, lead to more confusion than clarity, or just could have been an email.

What does an effective meeting entail?

Leading an effective meeting takes time, preparation, and effort and entails more than just picking a date and time. Meeting best practices include:

• Inviting the right people
• Creating a collaborative agenda
• Assigning roles during the meeting
• Establishing ground rules
• Using an explicit decision-making process
• Continuously evaluating and improving your meeting

The transition to virtual meetings brought additional best practices and tips such as choosing the right meeting platform, navigating technology, engaging participants meaningfully, and dealing with Zoom fatigue.

While any group can learn from and utilize meeting best practices, sometimes a topic, conflict, or group dynamic is too complex to handle on your own. When this happens, you may want to bring in a trained facilitator.

What is a facilitator and what do they do?

A professional facilitator is a trained, neutral third party who works with groups to overcome obstacles and achieve their goals. A facilitator will work with a group to understand the obstacles and utilize different processes and skills to help the group move forward. Facilitators are responsible to the entire group, not any single individual, and focus on managing a fair process, not promoting any single idea or direction. Other responsibilities of a facilitator include:

• Clarifying the purpose of meeting, desire outcomes, process to be used, and roles of each person
• Designing the meeting process in partnership with participants
• Keeping the group focused and on track
• Drawing out opinions and encouraging participation from all members
• Using skills such as active listening, summarizing ideas, and asking questions to help the group move forward
• Helping the group address conflicts that arise

Need help running better meetings?

Our facilitators are trained in a variety of facilitation processes, and we work collaboratively with groups to determine the best process to achieve their goals. As facilitators, we aim to create and promote a sense of equality among group members, encourage participation and collaboration, and foster inclusive solutions. 

If you're interested in learning how an outside facilitator can help your group, reach out to Kathy Murphy. You can also check out the resources below that we've created to help you plan and manage meetings more effectively both in-person and online.

Resources from the Conflict Resolution Program

• Agenda Planning Handout—Considerations for planning an inclusive meeting agenda.
• Difference Between the Facilitator and the Person in Charge—Comparisons of meeting responsibilities.
• Meeting Assessment Tool—A quick, ten-question form to anonymously assess your meetings.
• Meeting Roles—Possible roles for participants to delegate responsibilities in a meeting.
• Facilitator Techniques Table—Techniques facilitators can use to improve communication in meetings.
• Tips for Productive Virtual Meetings—A collection of best practices for leading productive meetings online.

Additional Resources

• What Is Facilitation?
• What is a Facilitator and Other Meeting Roles
• The Role of a Facilitator: Guiding an Event Through to a Successful Conclusion
• How to Run an Effective Meeting
• 10 Facilitation Techniques That Will Make Your Meetings Sing
• 9 Meeting Facilitation Skills for Managers
• Stealth Meeting Facilitation from the Rank-and-File
• How to Design an Agenda for an Effective Meeting
• Ask These 9 Questions Before Every Meeting To Avoid Wasting Time
• Designing for Purpose in Virtual Engagements (Essential Partners) PDF

Professional Organizations

• International Association of Facilitators
• Association for Conflict Resolution
• Southeast Association of Facilitators
  
• Mid-Atlantic Facilitator Network
• Center for Management & Organization Effectiveness
• Resetting The Table

Videos

• Meeting Facilitation Tips How to Facilitate Your First Meeting
• Facilitation Techniques for Leading an Effective Meeting Video Series
• IEP Facilitation Training Video Resources

CRP develops and delivers customized leadership development programs to help your organization excel. These programs typically provide opportunities for participants to: 

• recognize their responsibilities as team and organizational leaders;

• discover and develop their leadership strengths;

• acquire knowledge and develop skills on topics such as positive supervision, group and interpersonal dynamics, decision-making, teamwork, cultivating innovation, and managing organizational change

The format of the program can be customized to fit your timeline and budget. The program often includes:

• Classroom-style training sessions focused on developing knowledge and skills on a range of leadership and management topics
• Engagement and discussions with experienced leaders
• Facilitated workshops to guide teams of participants in the development and completion of capstone projects 

Clients include the Delaware Department of Labor and the Delaware Department of Health and Social Services.