Education & Training

Offered several times a year, CRC’s 30-Hour Mediator Training is a comprehensive, experiential course that teaches how to skillfully facilitate conversations between people in conflict by having frank and important dialogues and assisting them to reach mutually satisfactory outcomes. This course is designed for all individuals wanting to learn to mediate for use at home, in their communities, and professionally for social workers, attorneys, psychologists, and many other human-centered professions.

During the training, mediation students learn the mediation process and gain skills to help mediation participants have productive conversations and support their self-determination. Each module of CRC’s mediation course is infused with discussions of bias, race, and other cultural difficulties, and students are challenged to be aware of their affects of joining participants’ conversation during this vulnerable time of conflict. Students learn to identify the interests and fundamental needs that underlie the positions of people in conflict and learn ways to listen effectively, manage impasse, and tend to the needs of all participants. Additionally, participants learn skills to remain neutral in challenging situations and gain an understanding of ethical issues that may arise when mediating parties in conflict.

Participants purchase The Mediator’s Handbook: Revised & Expanded Fourth Edition, by Jennifer E. Beer and Caroline C. Packard. It may be purchased when registering, and it will be mailed to you with the course manual.

Prerequisite is a 30-Hour Civil Mediation Training. Completion of this Family Bridge class allows you to be on the Family Facilitative/Hybrid Roster in Minnesota.

Family mediation is an empowering process for people separating or divorcing.  District courts throughout Minnesota require parties filing for divorce to consider alternative dispute resolution processes during the course of their court case.  If you are already a trained civil mediator and are interested in becoming trained to mediate family mediation cases, completion of this class means you are eligible to apply to be on the Minnesota Rule 114 Family Facilitative Hybrid Qualified Neutral Roster.  In this class we cover: family law; psychological issues of adults and children in divorce; domestic abuse; financial and property issues, and mediator ethics in family cases.  Class includes role plays, coaching and debriefing.  

Professional Credits:

25 Alternative Dispute Resolution Credits (ADR)

25 Standard Continuing Legal Education Credits (CLE)

CRC’s Words Can Work is a conflict resolution education curriculum that utilizes relationship-building restorative circles, where effective conflict resolution strategies are modeled, discussed, and practiced. Words Can Work curriculum is based on social emotional learning (SEL) research in which people build skills in self-awareness, managing emotions, establishing relationships, and making responsible decisions that support success in school, work, and life. 

Over many weeks of being in circle together, youth and adults learn how to respond peacefully and productively to conflict. The curriculum includes a series of topics, such as understanding how the brain functions during conflict, checking our own emotional backpacks, seeing from others’ perspectives, and so on. In these sessions, students reflect on their life experiences and the impact of past decision making. This program helps people understand productive versus destructive conflict behaviors and the impact of conflict in their lives. It also encourages them to utilize the skills in a variety of settings.