Divorce Mediation Training

40-Hour Intensive Course

This workshop is designed to provide both hands-on training and a clear framework to help you work with families dealing with divorce. Our past participants tell us that this is some of the best professional training they have ever received.

Who Should Attend?

This is a workshop for any professionals – including attorneys, social workers, clinicians, school personnel, clergy, financial planners – who would like to incorporate the skills of mediation into their practice and to help couples who want to find a less damaging way to separate and divorce.

What Does this Workshop Include?

Our workshop uses an interactive format with role play, videotapes of divorce mediations, demonstrations, lectures, discussions, simulations, and even music and poetry.

Our 400-page manual covers all the basic content areas of divorce mediation, including:

• property division,
• support and
• parenting arrangements.

The training presents a six-stage model for structuring the divorce mediation process, with a focus on the skills involved in becoming an effective mediator. Included are components on

• paradigms for understanding conflict
• the emotional process of divorce and how it effects mediation
• the styles of mediation and identifying yours
• how to screen for domestic violence
• mediation and the law: a complex relationship
• confidentiality
• using caucusing effectively
• how co-mediation adds value
• mediation ethics and standards of practice
• starting a mediation practice and marketing
• writing competent memoranda of understanding

and much more.

A distinctive feature of this training is extensive use of videotapes for instruction, including tapes of actual mediations. We will also provide you with the forms we use with clients. The workshop includes a minimum of six divorce mediation role-plays so that each participant can practice and develop his/her skills.

What Credentials Will I have from this Workshop?

This 40-hour comprehensive divorce mediation training has been approved by the Family Section of the Association for Conflict Resolution (ACR). This workshop meets the training requirement needed to apply for Practitioner Member status in ACR.

Divorce falls under state law and many states now have training requirements. This program meets many state 40-hour training requirements to practice after your training as a mediator.

For Maryland residents, this workshop will meet the 40-hour requirement for basic mediation training under Rule 17 of the Court of Appeals for those wishing to be approved as mediators.

For Virginia residents, this workshop has been approved by the Supreme Court of Virginia as a 40-hour Family Mediation training program that may be applied toward partial fulfillment of the training requirements as a Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court Mediator and Circuit Court Family Mediator.

For Pennsylvania residents, this workshop meets the requirements for PA. Court Rule 1940.4 and PA. CLE credits.

The workshop is also approved for Category A CEUs for LCPCs.

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

Who are the Faculty for the Workshop?

“We pride ourselves in our high quality workshop that will be led by Carl Schneider, Ph.D. and Audrey M. Yowell, Ph. D., M.S.S.S.“.

Experienced mediators will provide individual coaching for participants in small group role plays.

What Should I Read Beforehand?

We recommend the following two books:

Getting to Yes, by Roger Fisher and William Ury with Bruce Patton (2nd ed., Houghton Mifflin, 1991; $11.95 pb)

A Guide to Divorce Mediation, by Gary Friedman (Workman Publishing, 1993; $12.95 pb)

Please read both of these books before the workshop. Copies of the Friedman book will also be available for purchase at the workshop.
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