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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

  Register

  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 a significant revision of earlier trainings in transformative dialogue, so even if you have taken an earlier training there is much to learn here. New elements 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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• Introduction to Transformative Mediation, with Tara West

  • When
    October 06, 2025
  •  
    1:00 PM - 2:30 PM
  • Location
    online

  Register

  Introduction to Transformative Mediation, with Tara West 

  Although transformative mediation is widely recognized as one of the main approaches to mediation, it’s also widely misunderstood. In this talk, certified transformative mediator Tara West will attempt to bridge that gap by sharing what transformative mediation means today (which is not exactly what it meant 25 years ago), compare and contrast it with other mediation approaches, and explain why it’s the approach she now exclusively practices.

  Stick around after the Introduction to T M to meet some of the Virtual Institute Trainers & hear about our upcoming offerings!

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• Coached Mediation Practice Group: The Co-Mediation Model, with Hannah Diamond

  • Start
    October 07, 2025
  •  
  • End
    October 21, 2025
  •  
  • Schedule
    3 sessions
  • Location
    online
  • Spaces left
    7

  Register

  Coached Mediation Practice Group: The Co-Mediation Model, with Hannah Diamond
  

  A great opportunity to practice your mediation skills in small group setting with a coach. These sessions will focus on mediating with a co-mediator using various role play scenarios. 

  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.

  1. October 7, 2025, 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM

  2. October 14, 2025, 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM

  3. October 21, 2025, 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM

  Zoom link sent upon registration. 

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• Inside Out Practice Group, with Robin Brzobohaty and Martina Cirbusová

  • When
    October 10, 2025
  •  
    9:00 AM - 12:00 PM
  • Location
    online

  Register

  Inside Out Practice Group, with Robin Brzobohaty and Martina Cirbusová
  

  Would you like to practice your mediation skills but prefer to have an experience where you will analyze how mediation works rather than be the one who is under the pressure of being analyzed?

  We do have a special practice session for you!

  During this three hour session you will have the opportunity to see how mediators work and analyze their work - ask questions about their intentions, discuss their  interventions, and have an opportunity to understand how they read the weaknesses and self-absorption of parties and why they offer specific interventions to the parties. You will have a chance to pause the mediation any time you will need, come back to specific situations, and analyze them in more detail.

  *If you attended this workshop in the past, know that there will be a new video analyzed this time!

  October 10, from 9 am -12 pm Eastern

  prerequisite: basic transformative mediation training

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• Responding Effectively to Conflict

  • When
    October 14, 2025
  •  
    11:00 AM - 1:00 PM
  • Location
    online

  Register

  Responding Effectively to Conflict, with Janet Mueller

  This workshop will help you to understand the dynamics that contribute to conflict from the perspective of the relational worldview and transformative approach to conflict. The group will discuss three conflict insights as a foundation for developing greater self-awareness and conflict competency.  Skills developed can be used for self-reflection, with community members, co-workers, family, and friends. Even as Conflict Practitioners, it can be hard to "do conflict" well.  This workshop will help us prepare for difficult conversations so you can show up as your best self, as well as help us better understand the people we serve.

  When you sign up for this workshop, you will receive and emailed PDF copy of a selection of essays on self managing conflict, written by Transformative practitioners, including Janet!

  Hope you join us for this 2 hour workshop.

  Price:  $60

  Special Member price: $20 

  
  

  
  

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• Check-In’s: The Art of Asking Non-Directive Questions, with Robin Brzobohaty and Martina Cirbusová

  • When
    October 21, 2025
  •  
    11:00 AM - 2:00 PM
  • Location
    online

  Register

  Check-In’s: The Art of Asking Non-Directive Questions, with Robin Brzobohaty and Martina Cirbusová

  Asking questions is a powerful tool through which parties can regain the reins of the conversation and restore their agency. As transformative practitioners, we ask questions in the form of the check-in intervention. The challenge, however, is how not to misuse questions to dominate the conversation or be one step ahead of the parties, leading them toward predefined objectives. This workshop will offer a deep analysis of this essential tool of the transformative practitioner in terms of proper delivery and possible positive and negative consequences of asking questions on the self-determination of the participants. Thus, the workshop will focus on the skill of asking questions in a way that maintains the fulfillment of all the premises of the transformative approach.

  In a 3 hour workshop participants will learn:

  • What type of intervention a check in is

  • What is the difference between content and process questions

  • How does asking both types of questions influence the conversation and self-determination

  • How to ask questions in tune with the premises of transformative practice 

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• Inside Out Practice Group, with Dan Simon and Tara West

  • When
    October 22, 2025
  •  
    12:00 PM - 2:00 PM
  • Location
    online

  Register

  Inside Out Practice Group, with Dan Simon and Tara West

  Would you like to practice your mediation skills but prefer to have an experience where you will analyze how mediation works rather than be the one who is under the pressure of being analyzed?

  We do have a special practice session for you!

  During this 2- hour session you will have the opportunity to see how mediators work and analyze their work - ask questions about their intentions, discuss their interventions, and have an opportunity to understand how they read the weaknesses and self-absorption of parties and why they offer specific interventions to the parties. You will have a chance to pause the mediation any time you will need, come back to specific situations, and analyze them in more detail.

  October 22, from 12-2 pm Eastern

  prerequisite: basic transformative mediation training

  Show details
• Domestic Violence & Transformative Practice, with Kristy Paranica

  • When
    October 30, 2025
  •  
    1:00 PM - 3:00 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.

  Please note the time for this in Central Europe will be 6pm-8pm.  Please check your local time as the US will not have changed their clocks yet.  LINK

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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
    6

  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 Reflection, with Tara West

  • When
    November 10, 2025
  •  
    12:00 PM - 2:00 PM

  Register

  The Art of Reflection, with Tara West

  Reflection is one of the most important interventions of the Transformative Model. It is a supportive response that is aimed at helping individuals hear themselves and make choices in how to communicate during a difficult conflict conversation.

  Reflection is a supportive third-party response that is aimed at helping individuals who are engaged in a conflict conversation to hear themselves better and to make choices. As practiced in the Transformative Approach to Mediation and Dialogue, reflection is neither a corrective or coercive intervention, (unlike reframing, which is often aimed at telling or suggesting to folks how they should speak or what their tone or focus should be). The Art of Reflection is practiced in a way where the mediator experiences themselves as a listening and observing mirror. Our reflections are most effective when they capture both what is said and what is not necessarily expressed verbally. Learn how to do reflection = mirroring, as a means of skillfully supporting each individual’s ability to gain clarity and improve their own conflict communication, which in turn, improves the interaction between parties in conflict. This workshop will include demonstrations, group discussions, and opportunities for participants to practice and receive feedback and coaching.

  *Basic TM training required

  
  

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• Advanced Transformative Mediation: Deepening Practice Through the Five Strategies

  • Start
    November 19, 2025
  •  
  • End
    February 11, 2026
  •  
  • Schedule
    10 sessions
  • Location
    online
  • Spaces left
    11
  • Registered
    1 registrant

  Register

  Advanced Transformative Mediation: Deepening Practice Through the Five Strategies

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

  Dates/Times: Weekly meetings November 19 - December 10, 2025 and January 7 - February 11, 2026  11:30 am- 2pm Eastern Time USA
  

  Commitment: 39 hour course (22.5 classroom hours plus 6.5 independent intersession hours)

  Cost:  Early bird $499USD by October 10, 2025.   

  Regular price - $625USD 

  Member  $499USD

  Course Overview: 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. However, effective transformative mediation is more than simply using interventions. Advanced transformative practitioners understand when and why they use these interventions and how the overall impact of their work helps to transform the quality of people's conflict interaction.

  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.” 

  Because the process for being certified as a transformative mediator includes self-evaluation and an evaluator assessment based on these five strategies, 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.

  Course Details:

  Advanced Mediation (Part 1) Orienting Ourselves to the Fives 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

  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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• The Art of Summary: A two-part workshop

  • Start
    December 05, 2025
  •  
  • End
    December 12, 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.

  December 5 from 9 am-12 pm Eastern

  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.

  December 12 from 9 am-12 pm Eastern

  *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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