This skills-based course is an intensive 60-hour training and run as three separate modules over a period of two months. It is designed for volunteers, frontline workers and professionals who want to obtain a foundation in conflict resolution and mediation skills for use in their own organisation or work situation or to become a mediator particularly in community, family, and workplace disputes.

A bursary scheme for residents and community workers in Ballymun is available for this course, please contact us on info@bclc.ie for more information and the application form.

After successful completion of the course, including the presentation, you will be eligible to go for accreditation by the Mediators’ Institute of Ireland (MII) Further information on becoming an MII accredited mediator is available on www.themii.ie . This is a separate process and has an additional fee payable to the MII. Ballymun Community Law Centre and the course tutors will support you in this step if you wish to go for it.

To book a place email: info@bclc.ie

Topics covered during the course.
Module 1: Conflict Resolution skills
1. MANAGING AND RESOLVING CONFLICT
• General introductions
• Our perceptions of “conflict”: positive and negative
• Neuroscience of conflict
2. DYNAMICS OF CONFLICT
• Mapping a conflict: your experience of a conflict situation
• Self-awareness and self-management in conflict
• Constructive and destructive behaviours
• Conflict triggers and ‘Hot Buttons’
3. STYLES OF CONFLICT MANAGEMENT
• The five styles of handling conflict
• Finding your conflict comfort zone
• Managing your style and avoiding going into excess
4. CONFLICT ANALYSIS
• The conflict spiral: how unmanaged conflict escalates.
• PIN model: Positions, Interests and Needs
• Feedback on the Conflict Dynamics Profile (optional)
5. REFLECTIVE LISTENING SKILLS
• Picking up clues from body language
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• Working with perceived reality: being heard, understood, and acknowledged.
• Reflective listening: the discipline of not adding anything.
• Connecting with hurt and the emotional impact of conflict

Module 2: Mediation skills
6. THE PLACE OF MEDIATION IN DISPUTE RESOLUTION SYSTEMS
• Process continuum for alternative dispute resolution (ADR)
• The growth of different mediation sectors in Ireland: community, family, workplace, and
commercial mediation
• The different models of mediation for each sector
7. GETTING PARTIES TO ‘THE TABLE’
• The pre-mediation phase: role and tasks of interveners
• Role play 1: community mediation – neighbour dispute.
8. THE BASICS OF THE MEDIATION PROCESS
• A five-stage mediation process for interpersonal disputes
• Video demonstration of the process (neighbour dispute)
9. MEDIATION PROCESS SKILLS PRACTICE THROUGH ROLE PLAY
• Rehearsing the introduction and storytelling stages
• Framing the issues and problem-solving stages
• Writing up the agreement
10. PROCESS ISSUES IN MEDIATION
• Empowerment of disputants
• Handling anger and processing hurt through storytelling skills.
• Power balancing and when to caucus/shuttle
• Reframing, problem solving and generating options.
11. LEGISLATION AND ETHICAL PRACTICE
• Introduction to the Mediation Act 2017
• Codes of Ethics

By the end of the 60-hour course, you will:
❑ have developed an awareness of the positive value of conflict and your own style of
responding to conflict.
❑ appreciate the essential features and principles of the mediation process and how to adapt it
for working through different interpersonal disputes.
❑ have participated in at least five simulated role play mediations, using scenarios developed
from different interpersonal dispute areas within the Irish context.
❑ understand each stage of the mediation process and possess the basic skills to resolve
conflicts informally sufficient to start practicing mediation (under supervision)

Geoffrey Corry BA (Mod) MSc (Mgmt) HDipEd is a self-employed consultant specializing in conflict resolution,
facilitation and mediation in a number of settings – workplace disputes, restorative justice and the community. He worked for 22
years as a family mediator with the state-run Family Mediation Service for marital separation and divorce. He was a Board member
of the Family Support Agency and a former chair of the Mediators Institute of Ireland as well as Facing Forward. At the MII Annual
Conference 2023 in Cork, Geoffrey received the first Lifetime Achievement Award in Mediation.

He was the founder of the Mediation Bureau in Tallaght, the first neighbour dispute resolution scheme in the Republic. He has taught mediation skills for over 20 years at UCD adult
education, Maynooth and Trinity. He was the Facilitator for over 50 political dialogue workshops held at the Glencree Centre for Reconciliation between 1994 and 2006 as part of the peace
process in Ireland. These workshops brought together party activists at a sub-leadership level from all the political parties in these islands to discuss key issues in the peace process.

Mary Lou Kennedy BA (Soc Sc), MSW (Social Work) is an independent professional mediator and conflict management specialist and coach. She mediates disputes in the workplace, in
business, in families and the community. Mary Lou also delivers conflict management training to businesses and organisations in the public and private sector along with conflict management coaching
and consultancy to build more collaborative workplaces.
She is a founder member of OAK Conflict Dynamics Ltd, a leading provider of mediation and conflict management services in Ireland.
Mary Lou is a master trainer in the CINERGY Model of Conflict Management Coaching, the Conflict Dynamics Profile and 3rd Party Resolution (TPR) model of managerial mediation with
the Mediation Training Institute, Eckerd College Florida. She also lectures on the Certificate in Mediation with The Law School, in Griffith College. She has trained the Ballymun Law Centre
panel of Conflict Management Coaches and provides ongoing supervisory support.

Ballymun Community Law Centre:
Ballymun Community Law Centre is an independent law centre and a charity. We provide free legal advice, representation, legal education and mediation for individuals and groups within the
community. We are committed to ensuring that access to justice is available to the people of Ballymun and we work towards an inclusive community based around equal human rights and
social justice. Mediation is provided free of charge through a team of volunteer mediators and is coordinated by our Development Officer, Sandra Mpanyira. www.bclc.ie