Skill Building Workshops

Thursday, October 28, 2004
1:00-6:00 p.m.
Locations to be determined

General Description

Skill Building Workshops are half day seminars designed to build/enhance participant's skills in conflict resolution. The idea is to spend a concentrated amount of time exploring an area of the field with an eye toward developing new approaches, analyses, and methods of intervention. Therefore, "skills" is construed broadly and can range from acquiring strategies for mediation to theoretical frameworks for analysis.

Workshop Choices

Transforming Conflict: A Group Relations Approach with Tracy Wallach

Justice and Narrative: Mediation with Leah Wing

International Conflict: Tackling humanitarian dilemmas through principled negotiation with Peter Brorsen

Narrative and Justice in Mediation, presented by Leah Wing

This workshop will explore the relationship between justice and narrative in mediation. In particular, we will examine how access to speech and "problem framing" can directly affect the experience and outcome for participants in mediation. We will discuss whose stories are told and attend to the relationship between storytelling and full democratic participation in this form of dispute resolution.

Instructor
Leah Wing, Ed. D. has been in the mediation field since 1983. In her consulting practice, she has trained and consulted for mediation programs at scores of schools, colleges, and universities, particularly on the intersection of issues of multiculturalism and conflict resolution. Leah is faculty in the Legal Studies Department at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst. She has presented at national and international conferences and most recently co-authored with Janet Rifkin "Racial Identity Development and the Mediation of Conflicts." Leah is on the board of directors of the Association of Conflict Resolution and is on the editorial board of Conflict Resolution Quarterly (formerly Mediation Quarterly).

Transforming Conflict: A Group Relations Approach, presented by Tracy Wallach

In this workshop, we will use some basic concepts of psychoanalytic and open systems theory, such as task, role, boundaries, authority, projective identification, and social defenses to help participants understand some of the covert, non-rational processes that occur in conflict situations and that may impact on their work as practitioners. A theoretical presentation will be followed by experiential exercises to demonstrate the dynamics that play out within and between groups. .

Instructor
Tracy Wallach holds an MSW from Smith College School of Social Work, and practiced as a psychotherapist in various organizations and in private practice for 20 years. She currently works as an organization development and leadership consultant based in Brookline, MA, and serves as President of the Center for the Study of Groups and Social Systems (Boston Affiliate, AK Rice Institute).

Rights vs. Interests: Tackling humanitarian dilemmas through principled negotiation, presented by Peter Brorsen

Humanitarian workers may face dilemmas where they are forced to choose between human rights and pragmatic interests. What to do when the paramilitary commander will not let your food convoy pass his checkpoint unless your female translator stays captive with him? In this workshop we will look at whether principled negotiation offers pragmatic options to such dilemmas without eschewing basic humanitarian principles and human rights.

Instructor
Peter Brorsen is a trainer and program manager of conflict resolution and peace building projects in conflict zones throughout the world for Conflict Management Group of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Using interest- based negotiation methodology, Peter undertakes projects in Iraq, Guyana, Liberia and Afghanistan and provides training to humanitarian workers, including at WHO, Harvard Medical School, and UN-OCHA. In his former work with the United Nations, Peter has coordinated humanitarian aid and built local government capacity in northern Iraq; managed education, health and sanitation projects in the Gaza Strip; mediated between Israeli and Palestinian security forces in the West Bank; and facilitated return of refugees in Croatia. Mr. Brorsen has advanced degrees in philosophy and international relations and is now completing his PhD on social capital at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.