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• ISCT Porch Gatherings 2025

  • Start
    February 21, 2025
  •  
  • End
    November 28, 2025
  •  
  • Schedule
    10 sessions
  • Location
    zoom

  Register

  ISCT Porch Gathering
  

  What: A virtual space to regularly gather, connect, and converse.

  Who: Transformative practitioners who identify as members of the Black/African diasporic experience.
  

  When: The 4^th Friday of each month from 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. via Zoom

  5/23, 6/27, 7/25, 8/22, 9/26, 10/24, 11/28 (last session)

  Hosts: Barbara Cockerman & Jerry Mings

  How to Participate: Register here, and receive reminders with the zoom link a few days before each of the scheduled sessions.
  

  Topics and Discussions: Informal and shaped by participants’ needs.

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• Fall 2025 Basic Transformative Dialogue Training: Who Needs to Talk to Whom about What and How?

  • Start
    September 01, 2025
  •  
    11:00 AM
  • End
    December 31, 2025
  •  
    11:00 AM
  • Location
    online

  Registration is closed

  Basic Transformative Dialogue Training:

  Who Needs to Talk to Whom about What and How?

  Dates/Times: This training is fully asynchronous. Upon registration you will receive access to a Google Classroom with all reading, videos, and coursework.  You will have the option to set up a call with one of the trainers if you'd like to ask questions or talk about any of the material.  The materials will be available to you until December 31, 2025
  

  Commitment:  18 hour course (8 hours of video and approximately 10 independent reading and reflection hours)

  Cost:  Early bird $395USD by September 15, 2025

  Regular price - $475USD 

  
  

  Course Overview: This training provides participants with the basic understanding and skills to support people in communities and organizations in having meaningful and constructive conversations across differences; conversations that help change the quality of their interactions whether or not they agree at the end of the process.   

  Participants will:

  • Learn how the transformative understanding of conflict applies to group and community conflict
  • Gain a relational understanding of identity, race, ethnicity, culture and power, and learn how transformative facilitators respond to these differences
  • Understand how transformative dialogue is consistent with trauma-informed practice
  • Learn to organize a participant-driven dialogue process through one-on-one and small group meetings and conversations with community members
  • Learn the goals, roles and core skills of a transformative facilitator
  • Learn techniques for facilitating open conversations and options for structuring interactions transformatively that allow even very large groups to share ideas and make decisions

  Who the course is for:

  This training is for anyone interested in growing their skills and understanding of Transformative Dialogue.  Elements on this online training include expanded premises on identity and people in groups, incorporation of trauma-informed practice into the training, and centering discussions of race, culture and power in the training. Whether you are interested in organizing and facilitating conversations in your local community, or in your workplace or organization you belong to, or you are working in an area of ethnopolitical conflict, this training will be an excellent starting point for this work.

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• Transformative Mediation Practice Group with Dan Simon

  • Start
    November 04, 2025
  •  
  • End
    November 18, 2025
  •  
  • Schedule
    3 sessions
  • Location
    online
  • Spaces left
    1

  Register

  Coached Mediation Practice Group, with Dan Simon.
  

  A great opportunity to practice your mediation skills in small group setting with a coach.  Three sessions allows for time to play the roles of both a mediator and a party in the mediation.  Group is limited to six participants.

  Three 2 hour Sessions on Tuesdays in November.

  November 4, 2025 12pm-2pm Eastern Time US

  November 11, 2025 12pm-2pm Eastern Time US

  November 18, 2025 12pm-2pm Eastern Time US

  Price: $90 USD

  Member Price: $72 USD

  
  

  Zoom link sent after registration.

  
  

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• The Art of Summary: A two-part workshop

  • Start
    November 21, 2025
  •  
  • End
    December 05, 2025
  •  
  • Schedule
    2 sessions
  • Location
    online

  Register

  The Art of Summary: A two-part workshop

  with Robin Brzobohaty and Martina Cirbusová

  
  

  Summary Workshop, Session 1 – Why, Where and How (2WH Approach)

  Summary is one of the key means mediators have for supporting parties during a difficult conversation. This workshop provides an opportunity to approach summaries from a fresh perspective by working in small groups and using videotapes.

  Participants will learn to recognize individual topics in the words of the parties using functional linguistic theory of a theme-rheme structure and bubbles with legs metaphor and compose them into valuable summaries.

  Participants will receive a comprehensive tool - 2WH - for real-time decision-making on using  summary.

  Summary Workshop, Session 2- The Many Faces of the Summary

  Regarding non-directiveness, a summary is considered one of the most difficult means for supporting parties during  conflict. Contrary to reflection, whilst summarizing, mediators inevitably have to change something on the parties' words to make the conversation more transparent for the parties. Acknowledging this, we realize we can recognize different types of the summary as to the number of the issues involved, time or location of the summary within the timeline of the conversation, or using positions of the parties regarding the summarized issue.

   During the workshop, participants will understand the different types of summaries and the possibilities of using them to support parties. 

  Participants will have the opportunity to analyze summaries of some important ISCT mediators.

  Participants will try to combine partial topics into thematic clusters. They will learn to distinguish between one topic and multi-topic summary.

  *Both sessions will be recorded and shared with all registered- so if you can't make it to one of the dates, you will still receive the recording and all relevant materials- hand outs/ slides etc.

  Total of 6 hours of training

  Cost: $120 early bird/member price

               $150 regular price

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• Practitioner Cafe: The Relational Worldview

  • When
    December 02, 2025
  •  
    12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
  • Location
    On line

  Register

  Practitioner Cafe: The Relational Worldview

  The Relational Worldview is the foundation of the Transformative Approach.  Written about in chapter 9 of the first edition of The Promise of Mediation, as well as in Baruch Bush's latest article,  "Self-Determination, Needs Satisfaction and Moral Growth – in Mediation and Negligence Law: A Paradigm Shift in Underlying Worldviews"  found here, the Relational Worldview has been key and still remains essential to the work. 

  In this cafe, let's gather to talk about the Relational Worldview - How we understand it, how we explain it to others, and how it impacts us outside of the mediation/dialogue room. 

  Hope to see you there!

  
  

  
  

  
  

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• Domestic Violence & Transformative Practice, with Kristy Paranica

  • When
    December 04, 2025
  •  
    10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
  • Location
    online

  Register

  Domestic Violence & Transformative Practice, with Kristy Paranica

  The goal of this offering is to enhance mediator skills to identify and address domestic violence issues in family mediation through role playing and discussion of best practices. The first hour will be a presentation, the4 second hour will be practice.  Some topics covered are: 

  • What is Domestic Violence (DV)? - Exploring the DV Scenario in Mediation

  • Understanding and Using the Mediator Screening Tool with Practice and Debrief

  • Safe Termination of a Mediation and Safety Planning

  • Mediation Role Play Practice with DV Issues with Debrief

  • New Ideas for Cases Involving DV – What is Possible?

  Zoom link will be sent after registration.
  

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• Child Inclusive Mediation, with Robin Brzobohaty and Martina Cirbusová

  • When
    December 12, 2025
  •  
    9:00 AM - 3:00 PM
  • Location
    online

  Register

  Child Inclusive Mediation, with Robin Brzobohaty and Martina Cirbusová

  This training will cover the following:

  • What is the purpose of involving
  children in mediation?

  • What is scientific evidence behind this
  practice?

  • How to involve children in mediation - 18
  different options will be introduced.

  • How to provide feedback from the child
  to parents during mediation? Video
  sample.

  • What techniques and tools are available?

  There will also be discussion about:
  • Key hallmarks of good practice.

  • Ethics of this particular practice.

  • Guidelines for professionals interested in
  this type of mediation, including steps and
  how to get started.

  December 12, 9 am - 3 pm Eastern

  Zoom link will be sent upon registration!

  Show details
• Advanced Transformative Mediation: Deepening Practice Through the Five Strategies

  • Start
    January 14, 2026
  •  
  • End
    April 01, 2026
  •  
  • Schedule
    9 sessions
  • Location
    online
  • Spaces left
    11
  • Registered
    1 registrant

  Register

  Course Overview:

  In this two-part course, you will learn about the Five Strategies of Transformative Mediation, first developed by Dorothy Della Noce, that further clarify and deepen the practitioner's understanding about how “purpose drives practice.” 

  In the Basic Transformative Mediation training, you explored transformative theory, principles, and foundational premises  and were introduced to the interventions that are used in transformative mediation. In this advanced training, you will deepen your learning about when and why to use these interventions and how the overall impact of the work helps to transform the quality of people's conflict interaction.

  This course serves as an excellent preparation for anyone who is considering applying for certification as well as for anyone who is simply interested in advancing their transformative practice. 

  Prerequisite: Completion of Basic Transformative Mediation training and at least 10 hours experience as a mediator whether from coached practice groups or actual mediations.

  The course includes four training sessions and four practice sessions, and a wrap up session, for nine sessions total. 

  _______________________________________________________________
  

  Course Facilitators: Olivier Chambert-Loir, Christian Hartwig, and Basia Solarz. 

  Course Dates/Times:

  • Four Training Sessions: January 14, 21, 28  & February 4

  • Four Coached Practice Session: Feb 25, Mar 4, 11, 18

  • Self-Evaluation Session: Mar 25 - Self-Evaluation! This is just a placeholder. No class will occur, but you should write your self-eval this week and get it in to the trainers in order to attend the concluding session.

  • Concluding Session: Apr 1

   *All 11:30 am- 2pm Eastern Time USA

  _________________________________________________________________________________________

  A little more about each section of the course:

  Advanced Mediation Part 1:  Training Sessions

  Orienting Ourselves to the Five Strategies of Transformative Mediation 

  Part 1 introduces you to a new way of seeing and understanding transformative mediation practice using the lens of Della Noce's Five Strategies. The five strategies represent the desired objectives and outcomes of mediation altogether and help the practitioner to fulfill the "promise of mediation." In effect, they are a job description for the transformative mediator. They are:

  Strategy #1:Supporting the parties’ view of mediation as a constructive conversation.

  Strategy #2:Supporting the parties’ sense of their own agency

  Strategy #3:Supporting the parties’ orientation to each other 

  Strategy #4:Supporting the parties’ conflict talk 

  Strategy #5:Supporting the parties’ decision-making process

  With the support of a facilitator, you will learn to distinguish between means, moves and strategies and will be encouraged to analyze mediation based on  moves rather than interventions alone. With the support of the Move Analysis Form and through group discussion, you will learn to recognize moves consistent with each strategy in a recorded mediation.  

  In the final session, we will prepare for part 2 by organizing into coached mediation practice groups and sharing your development goals as transformative mediators.

  Part 1 Total time:14 hours - 10 course hours + 4 hours inter-session work 

  Advanced Mediation Part 2: Coached Mediation Practice Sessions 

  You will meet in groups of four with a facilitator for four sessions of coached mediation practice. Each session will allow two participants to mediate for 30 minutes and receive 30 minutes of debrief and feedback based on their development goals. Each participant will mediate two times over the course of the four practice sessions. Recordings will be made of each session so that you can review your work as a mediator and possibly use one of your recorded mediations to apply for certification. 

  Following the four practice sessions, you will have an individual writing session in place of a group session. This will give you time to write a self-evaluation based on one of the course recordings of you  work as a mediator that incorporates your understanding of the five strategies. We will then meet for a concluding session. 

  Total Time: 15 hours (12.5 course hours + 2.5 writing hours)

  Enrolment maximum: To ensure each participant has two opportunities to mediate and receive facilitator feedback, this course is  limited to 12 participants.

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