June 8, 2007

Meeting and Process Facilitation:

A Workshop for Group Leaders and Process Managers

There is a broad range of occasions in one’s professional life that call for the use of effective facilitation. Given this range, the dynamics of facilitation vary; however, there are some basic facilitation skills that can be useful whether you are a manager who occasionally runs meetings, a neutral outsider hired to manage a decision-making process, or a mediator helping to resolve a conflict.

This one-day interactive workshop will overview the types, uses, and stages of facilitation, teach a framework for assessing facilitation needs and designing an appropriate process, and introduce a set of concepts and skills for facilitation in a wide variety of settings. The workshop will also provide an opportunity to practice basic facilitation skills and manage challenging people and situations in facilitation using interactive exercises.

Topics to be covered include:

__ assessment

__ process design

__ agenda-setting

__ how to guide a group

__ when and how to intervene
__ power dynamics

__ dealing with difficult behaviors

All workshop participants will be asked to complete a brief survey prior to the workshop, to share experiences and interests that will help guide the training content.

About the Instructor
Stacie Nicole Smith is a Senior Associate at the Consensus Building Institute, a preeminent public dispute resolution organization based in Cambridge, MA. Ms. Smith works as a trainer, facilitator, and mediator in the context of multi-party public consensus building processes and disputes. She specializes in work with communities, educational contexts, and curriculum development. In addition to her Senior Associate work, Ms. Smith is the Director of the Workable Peace Project at CBI.

Schedule, Location, and Fee

Friday June 8, 2007; 8:30 AM - 5:00 PM

Healy Library, UMass Boston; 11th floor

Fee: $150 [includes continental breakfast, afternoon snack, and all materials]

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June 11-12, 2007

“Do No Harm:” Guidelines for Intervention in International Conflict

Providing international assistance in conflict situations poses difficult problems. Even when it is effective in saving lives, alleviating suffering, and furthering sustainable development, too often the aid [and the group providing it] reinforces divisions among contending groups. For over a decade, The Do No Harm Project of the CDA Collaborative Learning Projects has identified the ways in which international humanitarian and/or development assistance given in conflict settings may be provided so that, rather than exacerbating and worsening the conflict, it helps local people disengage from fighting and develop systems for settling the problems which prompt conflict within their societies.

This two-day workshop will use case studies and interactive exercises to highlight the issues of providing assistance in conflict; demonstrate the use of the Do No Harm Frameworks to analyze difficult situations; generate options to mitigate negative impacts; and point the way to opportunities for aid workers to play a productive role in preventing and resolving violent conflict.

About the Instructor

Marshall Wallace is the Director of the Do No Harm Project at CDA Collaborative Learning Projects. Learn more about CDA by clicking here.

Schedule, Location, and Fee

Monday June 11 and Tuesday June 12, 2007; 8:30 AM - 5:00 PM

Healy Library, UMass Boston; 11th floor

Fee: $200 [includes continental breakfast, afternoon snack, and all materials]

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June 13, 2007

Online Dispute Resolution: The State of the Art

 

Online Dispute Resolution [ODR] is the hottest area of the ADR field right now. But it is still in its infancy, and there are many questions about how and when to apply ODR to disputes. Do the rules of offline ADR apply to ODR? How does technology change the equation? Can ODR be effective when parties are not looking into the other side’s eyes? How can offline neutrals best translate their skills online? How can ODR compliment ADR?

In this Seminar we’ll examine the development of ODR, think through some of the new challenges it poses to neutrals and systems designers, and look at the major providers, administrative agencies, and international organizations currently involved. We’ll also get to try out state-of-the-art ODR technologies through a series of simulations, and to begin to wrestle with the challenges of providing effective dispute resolution online.

 

About the Instructor
Colin Rule is currently Director of Online Dispute Resolution for eBay and PayPal. He co-founded Online Resolution, an online dispute resolution (ODR) provider, in 1999 and served as its CEO (2000) and President. Previously, Colin was General Manager of Mediate.com, the largest online resource for the dispute resolution field. Colin also worked for several years with the National Institute for Dispute Resolution in Washington, D.C. and the Consensus Building Institute in Cambridge, MA. Colin’s book Online Dispute Resolution for Business was published in September 2002, and he authors the online conflict resolution column in ACResolution Magazine. He is currently Co-Chair of the Online Committee of the Dispute Resolution Section of the American Bar Association and a Fellow at the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School.

 

Schedule, Location, and Fee

Wednesday June 13; 8:30 AM - 5:00 PM

Taylor Center, Wheatley Building, UMass Boston; 3rd floor

Fee: $150 [includes continental breakfast, afternoon snack, and all materials]

registration limited to 24 participants

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June 21, 2007

Collaboration in the Clinical Setting:

Managing Teams with Geniuses, Disrupters, and Avoiders

The increasing complexity of delivering safe health care requires collaboration across disciplines, departments and facilities. Pressures within these complex systems create conflict and new proposed accreditation standards are requiring leaders to address disruptive behavior and build effective inter-professional teams. Integrating techniques used by health care mediators improves interdisciplinary efforts and facilitates accountable work environments. Shifting from avoidance to engagement requires skills and processes which are currently under represented in most health care environments.

This interactive training program will provide strategies for developing collaborative cultures, for addressing barriers to collaboration, and for defining and responding to disruptive behavior. The session will provide insights into ways in which our traditional educational practices and codes of ethics propagate barriers to collaboration across disciplines impacting quality of patient care and work satisfaction.

Program Highlights:

__ Strategies for creating collaborative cultures in complex environments
__ Techniques for preventing and responding to disruptive behavior that impacts patient safety
__ Sample policies and codes of conduct for creating professional behavior expectations across disciplines
__ Overview of framework for negotiating accountable behavior
__ Insights into cultural barriers to collaboration within the health professions
__ Overview of skills needed by effective leaders in complex organizations

6.5 Nursing Contact Hours

This continuing nursing education activity was approved by the Massachusetts Association of Registered Nurses, Inc., an accredited approver by the American Nurses Credentialing Center's Commission on Accreditation.

About the Instructor
Debra Gerardi, RN, MPH, JD is a mediator and health care dispute resolution consultant providing mediation/ facilitation services, systems design and conflict management training programs for healthcare organizations internationally. She is Chair of the Program on Healthcare Collaboration and Conflict Resolution at the Werner Institute for Negotiation and Dispute Resolution at Creighton University School of Law. She has provided professional services to over 75 health care organizations including UCSF Medical Center, the World Health Organization World Alliance for Patient Safety, Stanford Hospital and Clinics, and the American Medical Association.

Schedule, Location, and Fee

Thursday June 21; 8:00 AM - 4:30 PM

Healy Library, UMass Boston; 11th floor

Fee: $200 [includes continental breakfast, afternoon snack, and all materials]

Register Now

Contact disres@umb.edu with questions on any of the listed workshops