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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ):

Thank you for your interest in our basic mediation training workshop for professionals . This workshop is designed to provide both hands-on training and a clear framework to enable participants to work effectively with parties involved in disputes who need help. Our past participants tell us that this is some of the best professional training they have ever received. We hope your experience will be the same.

Who should attend?

This workshop is for anyone interested in learning about mediation processes and augmenting their present practice and work with mediation skills, including attorneys, managers, and human service professionals, educators, religious leaders, persons in organizations who want to incorporate mediation in their professional skills, and private practitioners and consultants who would like to supplement their skills and practice.

What does this workshop include?

This highly interactive workshop uses a wide range of formats including video, demonstrations, lectures, discussions, simulations, story and music. The workshop, with a 400-page manual, covers the basic content areas of mediation. The training presents a six-stage model of the mediation process and focuses on the skills involved in becoming an effective mediator.

Some of the many components in this training include:

• three core paradigms for dealing with conflict
• advocacy and empowerment
• the styles of mediation & identifying yours
• asking skillful questions
• integrative and distributive barganing
• understanding & working with clients' conflict stories
• using caucus effectively
• how co-mediation adds value
• mediator ethics and standards of practice
• starting your mediation practice & marketing
• writing competent memoranda of agreement

and much more.

A distinctive feature of this training is extensive use of videotapes for instruction, including tapes of actual mediations. The workshop includes a minimum of six mediation role-plays so that each participant can practice and develop his/her skills. We will consider conflicts in a broad range of settings including health care, disputing neighbors, family conflict, divorcing parents, civil, contract and employment disputes, enabling participants to intervene effectively in conflict in a variety of settings. For Maryland residents, this workshop will meet the 40-hour requirement for basic mediation training under Rule 17 of the Court of Appeals in Maryland for those wishing to be approved as mediators.

A certificate of completion, suitable for framing, will be issued to you upon successful completion of and full attendance at the training course.

Can I apply for membership in the Association for Conflict Resolution after this workshop?

Yes. The Association for Conflict Resolution (ACR) offers workshop graduates the opportunity for further professional development and networking. ACR is the newly merged successor organization to the Academy of Family Mediators, the Conflict Resolution Education Network, and The Society of Professionals in Dispute Resolution. This program also fulfills the 40-hour training requirements for Practitioner Member status in ACR.

Who are the faculty for the course?

The workshop will be led by:

Carl D. Schneider, Ph.D, … Over the past twenty years Carl has trained several thousand divorce mediators locally, nationally, and abroad. Currently Director of Mediation Matters, Bethesda, Maryland, Carl is a registered psychologist, licensed clinical Marriage and Family Therapist, Certified Mediator with the Maryland Council on Dispute Resolution and with the Supreme Court of Virginia, and an Advanced Practitioner Member of the Association for Conflict Resolution (ACR). Carl is the former Director (1981-1989) of Divorce Mediation Service, a group practice of 16 mediators in the Chicago area, and former Director of the Mediation Program of Woodbury College in Montpelier, Vermont. He has been on the Board of Directors of the national Academy of Family Mediators, and has been the chair of the Certification Committee for the Maryland Council on Dispute Resolution. Carl is author of Shame, Exposure and Privacy (Norton, 1992) and has served on the editorial board of Mediation Quarterly. He holds a M. Div. degree from Union Theological Seminary in N.Y.C. and a Ph.D. from Harvard University.

Coaches: experienced mediators will assist with individual coaching for participants in small group role plays.

Time and Dates:

Thisis an intensive, experiential forty-hour workshop. We will meet from 8:45 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. Thursday-Monday. Please plan to be present for the full workshop. Registration will begin at 8:30 a.m. on the first day; the workshop begins at 8:45 a.m. We end the workshop by 5:30 p.m. on Monday.

Location:

The workshops are held at the offices of Mediation Matters, 9816 Parkwood Drive, Bethesda, Maryland (click here for directions).

What is the cost?

Early registration (a deposit of $175 at least thirty days prior to the workshop) is $1225 (manual included). After that, the fee is $1325. The full balance is due two weeks prior to the workshop with no refunds beyond that point.

How do I register?

Send a check for $175 and a completed registration form to:

Mediation Matters
9816 Parkwood Drive
Bethesda, MD. 20814

Your registration fee is refundable, less $25 service fee, up to three weeks prior to the training. After that, the deposit is non-refundable. Registration for the workshops is limited in order to give proper attention to small groups and role plays. Since many of our workshops fill quickly, we encourage you to register early.

Should I read anything beforehand?

Yes. We recommend two books - Roger Fisher and William Ury with Bruce Patton's Getting to Yes (2nd ed., Houghton Mifflin, 1991; $11.20) and Kenneth Cloke and Joan Goldsmith's Resolving Personal and Organizational Conflict: Stories of Transformation & Forgiveness (Jossey-Bass, 2000; $38).

These books can be ordered online from Amazon.com by clicking on the covers below.

                 
The 400-page Training Manual for the workshop, including ready-to-use form, will be distributed the first day of the training.

Accommodations:

If you would like assistance in finding nearby inexpensive accommodations, please contact us.

Meals:

We will provide a continental breakfast in the morning, snacks in the afternoon, and a gourmet luncheon daily.

What is the attire of the workshop?

Feel free to wear clothes in which you will be comfortable. Our experience is that people often differ in what they regard as a comfortable room temperature, so you may want to dress accordingly.

Please join us:

We hope you will be able to join us for this fine professional training. If you have any questions not answered by this page, feel free to call us at (301/581-0330 or 1-800-905-2221 outside of the Washington DC area).

Carl D. Schneider, Ph.D.
Director
Mediation Matters

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