Teleseminar details – oldest at the bottom

To participate in teleseminars, call (218) 862-1000; when prompted, enter the pin number 204256#

Participants that are ACR members are welcome to log on to the Family Section web site. Please note this is separate from your ACR web site log on name and password. Consult the Family Section web site for instructions.

Recordings of the teleseminars are available. Please consult the Family Section web site for more information.

Participating in Family Section teleseminars will provide continuing education credit for Advanced Practitioners. Simply record your participation on your ACR Continuing Education reports.

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December 7, 2011 - Mediation - Deal or No Deal? Gregory Firestone, Ph.D.

While mediators are eager to help the parties communicate, negotiate and possibly reach an agreement, there are times when a mediator must terminate mediation. This teleseminar will address the following two questions: To what extent do the AFCC Model Standards of Practice for Family and Divorce Mediation direct when it is time to stop a mediation and what factors should be considered when determining how to comply with these Standards?

Gregory Firestone, Ph.D.

Gregory Firestone, Ph.D. is Director of the University of South Florida Conflict Resolution Collaborative and serves on the Florida Supreme Court Alternative Dispute Resolution Rules and Policy Committee (including seven years as Committee Vice Chair). He has been a practicing mediator for more than twenty-five years; an ACR Family Mediation Advanced Practitioner Member; a practicing Florida Supreme Court certified family and appellate mediator; and a licensed psychologist. Dr. Firestone regularly conducts family mediation training approved by ACR and the Florida Supreme Court and serves on the Editorial Board of Family Court Review. He has previously served on the Boards of Directors of the Academy of Family Mediators and the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts. He is Past President of the Florida Chapter of the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts and has received numerous awards including the 2002 ACR Presidential Award. Dr. Firestone has lectured and published widely in the field of mediation; coauthored Mediation Works: Make it Work for You, a family mediation orientation video produced by the Florida Supreme Court Dispute Resolution Center and represented ACR in the Uniform Law Commission (formerly NCCUSL) drafting of the Uniform Mediation Act.

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November 2, 2011 - Do No Harm: Mediating When Domestic Abuse Has Been Alleged - Christy Cumberlander Walker

We’ve all seen or heard horror stories regarding domestic abuse situations. There is even a school of thought that no case with a history of domestic abuse should ever be mediated. The reality is mediation can be successful in certain types of cases. However the mediator must remember the rule of mediation is to do no harm.

This teleseminar will include how to screen and what the mediation should keep in the forefront of their thinking when making the determination to mediate or not.

Christy Cumberlander Walker
Christy Cumberlander Walker is the Coordinator of the Access/Visitation and the Juvenile Domestic Violence Mediation Programs. She also provides private dispute resolution training and services across the country. Christy currently serves as the co-chair of the Court section of ACR and has been a past member of the Family Section Advisory Council.

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Woody's greatest source of career satisfaction is providing inspirational mentoring to peacemakers on all levels and in every field to improve our craft at the table and to help colleagues build satisfying careers in conflict resolution that are financially self-sustaining and provide needed service to individuals and organizations suffering from conflict and to help heal our society at large.

In this teleseminar, Woody will share his insights about the blend of practice and career to help us further prosper in our work.

Forrest (Woody) Mosten
Forrest (Woody) Mosten is a mediator, collaborative attorney, trainer, and author, recognized as a pioneer in our field and has been in private mediation practice since 1979.

Woody is an ACR Advanced Practitioner Member and Approved Trainer, was a Consultant Member of the Former Academy of Family Mediators, and is the former Chair of ACR's Taskforce to Establish a National Peacemaker Museum. He is the Plenary Keynote Speaker for ACR's 2011 Annual Meeting in San Diego and his topic is "The Journey from Mediation to Peacemaking." Adjunct Professor at UCLA School of Law and a worldwide trainer and keynote presenter, Woody is the author of 4 bestselling and critically acclaimed books that help define our work: Complete Guide to Mediation (1997), Unbundling Legal Services (2000), Mediation Career Guide (2001), and Collaborative Divorce Handbook (2009). In addition, he has authored numerous articles and book chapters and has been a journal guest editor of special journal issues on training, unbundling, Collaborative Practice, and ACR Magazine’s 2009 Special Issue on Marketing. Woody is the recipient of the prestigious ABA Lawyer as Problem Solver Award, the ABA Lifetime Legal Access Award, Los Angeles Bar's Conflict Prevention Award and the Southern California Mediation Association named him Peacemaker of the Year and established a conflict resolution library project in his name. The University of California, Riverside has established the Forrest S. Mosten Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution Initiative in 2010, the International Bar Association honored Woody by renaming its prestigious law school competition, Louis M. Brown and Forrest S. Mosten International Client Consultation Competition.

Woody can be reached at www.MostenMediation.com

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September 7, 2011 - Mediating Bulldogs (controllers) & Terriers (histrionics) - Scott Brown, Ph.D.

Note: Due to a client emergency, Dr. Brown was unable to present this topic in August. He is graciously offering to present in September.

It’s interesting to notice how much people will tell us about how to communicate with them if we will just listen. Sometimes those of us who are trained in communication become so focused on healthy communication that we all too easily slip out of “good” communication and into “should” communication. That is, we become fixated on trying to get our clients to communicate well that we fail to attend to and make use of their communication styles. In fact, simple observations of some characteristics of a client will help us learn how they speak and more importantly, how they hear. If we listen closely we will, at the very least be better able to communicate with our clients and may even be able to help them communicate with one another.

This seminar will explore the thought patterns, narcissistic needs, and subsequent communication styles of Bulldogs (those who are controlling of others) and Terriers (those who use drama to gain validation). Participants will learn to examine the above qualities and use their findings to more effectively communicate with these individuals. Furthermore, analysis and interpretation in a metacommunication format may help these clients better understand one another and clarify inaccurate inferences that lead to hurt and angry feelings that impede mediation.

Scott Brown, Ph. D.

Dr. Brown is a graduate of William Jewell College with majors in Psychology and Religion. He has a Master’s in Counseling and a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from the University of Missouri at Kansas City. He completed his pre-doctoral internship at Harvard University. Dr. Brown has managed clinical programs in several area hospitals while maintaining a small private practice. Approximately ten years ago, he moved into full time private practice in Overland Park, Kansas. His practice has been focused in the areas of forensic psychology, Police Psychology, children and their families, hypnosis, and training/performance improvement. In a recent conversation, Scott and a colleague tallied the number of hours that each had spent conducting psychotherapy: During his career, Scott has spent over 30,000 hours providing psychotherapy for clients.

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May 4, 2011

COMMON SENSE, LEGAL SENSE and NONSENSE ABOUT DIVORCE

Husbands and wives do not look to lawyers or the law when they have problems to solve or decision to make in their marriage. Rather, they solve those problems and make those decisions pretty much on their own. How do they do that? based on their common sense and the personal considerations that are important to them. Why would they do that on any other basis?
Nevertheless, while that was sufficient in the past, the minute they decide to divorce their first thought is to turn to lawyers. That is because they have been persuaded by one and all, and by everything they read or hear, that they have a legal problem. That being the case, only lawyers are qualified to make the decisions in their lives.

Divorce lawyers would have you believe that this is simply legal sense. It isn’t. It is legal nonsense. Lawyers do not know what is best for us. Nor are they necessarily wise. They are just people who went to law school.

This is not to suggest that a couple’s common sense will be alone sufficient in their divorce as it was in their marriage. It may be when it comes to their children and perhaps even what they will do with their home. But it won’t be sufficient when it comes to other issues, such as how much one of them should pay to the other for the support of their children. What in their experience in their marriage could possibly enable them to make that decision. In other words, how can they answer that question based on their common sense alone? They won’t be able to. That being the case, they are going to have to look to something else. There is only one other place that they can look. That is the law.

But if they look to the law, it is to be left with an answer, and if the law will do that, it deserves to be called legal sense. But if all that it does is leave them with a debate, going nowhere, as to what that answer is, then it has been of no help. That is not legal sense. It is nothing but legal nonsense, and it should be called that.

As we all know, if divorcing husbands and wives go off to separate lawyers to get the answers to their questions, their only thanks will be to be given different answers to the same question. In other words, instead of solving their problem, they will only be left with one.
If they want to solve their problem, there is only one way to do that. Nor do they need a legal education to understand this. Their common sense will be enough to tell them. They will have to go off together to the same lawyer.

Lenard Marlow, J.D., a graduate of Columbia Law School, is a Fellow of The American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyer and past President of The New York State Council on Divorce Mediation. He has presented numerous workshops and trainings, and written books and articles, on the subject of divorce mediation, including Divorce Mediation - A Practice In Search of a Theory, published by Harlan Press, and The Two Roads to Divorce and Divorce Mediation: A New Vision of the Law, published by Xlibris. His new book, Common Sense, Legal Sense and Nonsense about Divorce which will also be published by Xlibris, will be out this summer.
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April 6, 2011

Confronting Values and the Value of Confrontation: Conflict Resolution between Parties with Strong Religious Beliefs and Convictions - Donal O’Reardon

In this seminar I will challenge the commonly held view that conflicts grounded in religious beliefs are intransigent and so immune to resolution. I will explore how it is possible to separate a particular religious belief from its practical interpretation and offer strategies for dealing with parties who see their values and beliefs as a barrier to a resolution.

 

Donal O’Reardon, originally from Ireland, holds graduate degrees in philosophy and theology and has worked in education both at secondary and university level in Ireland, the UK, the US and Canada. Based in the Toronto area, he teaches and trains students and professionals in conflict resolution skills. Donal is also an analyst at the Workplace Fairness Institute and at St. Stephen's Community Mediation Service in Toronto. He writes regularly on the relationship between ideas, values and conflict resolution and is currently completing a book on conflict resolution and philosophy. Donal can be reached at donal@oreardonconsulting.com.

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March 2, 2011   3:00 ET  

 

Does anyone of these things sound familiar?  Do you know anyone who might be in a blended family and going through hell with the step-children or the other parent, or not feeling accepted in the new home? Then this workshop entitled ADDRESSING CONFLICT IN BLENDED FAMILIES is just what you need.

 

This is a workshop presentation designed and presented by two professionals with expertise and knowledge in helping the members of such a family unit to address the conflicts that arise when two separate families come together in one domestic unit.  The presenters are an accomplished mediator and human resources consultant, and a successful family therapist. Together Susan and Clyde seek to help families understand the nature and significance of the conflicts within the blended family context, and provide practical approaches for the members to address these conflicts. People leave the workshop with a deep appreciation that they can overcome these conflicts and that the family does not have to live in turmoil.

 

Susan Lycett Davis, Ed.D. in Organizational Leadership and Conflict Resolution. She is a researcher, consultant, and program professor at Nova Southeastern University, Florida. She has worked extensively in the UK, USA, Africa and the Caribbean. Dr. Davis has demonstrated success in managing organizational growth, employee development, diversity awareness, workplace violence prevention, and conflict resolution initiatives.  Her purpose in life is to serve others and help them grow through the facilitation of learning, professional and personal development…”Find your passion, live your dream”.

Clyde Bailey holds a PhD in Marriage and Family Therapy from Nova Southeastern University where he currently has dual duties as a Doctoral Enrollment Counselor and Program Professor. Additionally he holds a Bachelors degree in Sociology and a Masters degree specializing in Social Psychology, both from the University of the West Indies (UWI), Jamaica. When not involved in professional duties Clyde can be found working on his very humble music skills, reading, being a mentor or enjoying the company of his wife and their teenage son.

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February 2, 2011

The Child’s Checkbook: Separated Parents Addressing their Children’s Life Expenses

This teleseminar will present a summary of the flaws in the current child support system and will demonstrate how parents can build a child support plan in a cooperative manner. The Children’s Checkbook is compatible with the cooperative approach used in building parenting plans and in fact, the title of the law review article is “If they can build parenting plans, they can also build child support plans.”

Participants are asked to read and refer to the following article during the teleseminar, especially the grid presented on the last page.

http://www.ericksonmediation.com/files/Children's%20Checkbook%20Wm%20Mitchell%20Law%20Review%20Oct%2007.pdf

Stephen K. Erickson, J.D. is licensed as an attorney, but works exclusively a mediator. Since 1977, he has mediated over 5,000 disputes in his private practice. He received the Bush Leadership Fellowship Award for the study of mediation in 1979 and is a founder and second president of the Academy of Family Mediators. He is well known as a mediation trainer and speaker, and has published numerous articles and books on the subject. In 1996 he and his partner Marilyn McKnight were awarded the Distinguished Mediator Award by the Academy for their outstanding contributions to the field of mediation. Steve finished his three-year term as Board Member of the International Association for Conflict Resolution in 2005 where he also chaired the Taskforce on Mediator Certification. He and Marilyn McKnight have co-authored five highly successful books on mediation: Family Mediation Casebook (1988), The Children’s Book (1992), Mediating Divorce: A Client’s Workbook (1998), Mediating Divorce: A Trainer’s Manual (1998), and The Practitioner’s Guide to Mediation (2001). Steve has taught as adjunct professor at the University of St. Thomas Law School, the William Mitchell College of Law. He has recently been appointed to the faculty at Augsburg College in Minneapolis, where teaches a course in the Master of Arts in Leadership program in the fall, 2010.
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December 1, 2010

Drafting Parenting Plans that Really Work for Families – Rebecca T. Macgruder

Clear, unambiguous, and highly customized parenting plans take more time to write, but the benefits to the clients are enormous. Parenting plans may be ignored when the road of life is smooth, but when families hit the inevitable potholes, a well-written parenting plan is essential. Parents need a roadmap that is easy to read, that provides clear direction, and that takes care of children’s needs. The professional’s job is to create a user-friendly parenting plan that is specific to each family’s special needs and that takes into account the usual and unusual situations that arise after the dust of separation has settled. Join an experienced mediator who routinely writes detailed and specific parenting plans to learn the skills, strategies, and techniques of good drafting.

Rebecca T. Magruder, M.S.W., J.D. focuses her private practice in the greater St. Louis, Missouri area on mediation, collaborative law, and other non-adversarial methods for resolving family law disputes. Ms. Magruder is an Advanced Practitioner member of ACR’s Family Section and the Past Chair of ACR’s Family Section Advisory Council. Ms. Magruder is serving a second term on the Board of Directors of the Collaborative Family Law Association and is currently President-Elect. Ms. Magruder currently serves as President of the Board of Directors for M.A.R.C.H., Inc. (Mediation Achieving Results for Children), a non-profit mediation service in Missouri, and as a member of the St. Louis Committee for AFCC-Missouri. Ms. Magruder trains and mentors new mediators and is an adjunct assistant professor of mediation at St. Louis University School of Law. Ms. Magruder is listed in Best Lawyers in America under the areas of Collaborative Family Law and Family Law Mediation.

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Child Protection mediation is a multi-party dispute resolution process involving parents, parent's counsel, caseworkers, prosecuting attorneys, guardian ad litem, and others who are seeking to develop a consensus as to how to resolve the issues stemming from the allegations of child abuse and neglect. This teleseminar will discuss some of the the challenges and opportunities facing child protection mediators and will include a discussion of the Child Protection Mediation Guidelines being developed through a joint effort of the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts AFCC), National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ) and American Humane Association (AHA).

 

Gregory Firestone, Ph.D. is Director of the University of South Florida (USF) Conflict Resolution Collaborative and serves on the Florida Supreme Court Alternative Dispute Resolution Rules and Policy Committee (including seven years as Vice Chair) and on the Editorial Board of Family Court Review. Dr. Firestone has previously served on the Boards of Directors of the Academy of Family Mediators (AFM) and the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC) and was the Official Observer (on behalf of ACR) to the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL) Uniform Mediation Act Drafting Committee. He has conducted child protection mediation training for courts and/or government programs throughout the U.S. and internationally; has published numerous articles on child protection mediation; and is one of the participants working on the Child Protection Guidelines project sponsored by AFCC, JCJFCJ and AHA. Gregory Firestone is a licensed psychologist, mediator, mediation trainer and dispute resolution system consultant and has maintained a private mediation practice since 1984.
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August 4, 2010   3:00 ET  

Parenting coordination is a growing area of practice for many family conflict professionals, but it's much more than just mediation by a different name. Recent research about the practices and experiences of parenting coordinators (PCs) has demonstrated that they serve as excellent examples of conflict professionals who are, in Bernie Mayer’s paradigm, “staying with conflict”. This presentation will look at some recent research on PCs and consider some of the lessons PCs have to teach us about the possibilities and the potential risks of "staying with conflict" in a family context.

 

Sherrill Hayes, Ph.D. first trained as a family mediator in 1999 as a graduate student at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG) with Sam Margulies. He received his Ph.D. from Newcastle University conducting research on family mediation practices and policies with Prof. Janet Walker. During this time he also worked as a mediator for two different mediation services in England.  Upon returning to the US, Sherrill worked as a child custody and visitation mediator for the North Carolina 18^th District Court and joined the faculty of Conflict Studies & Dispute Resolution (then Conflict Resolution) at UNCG in 2006 as the first full time faculty member. He took his first parenting coordination case in 2005 (it’s closed now!). He studies and practices different forms of family dispute resolution including divorce education, family mediation, and parenting coordination. More information can be found https://sites.google.com/a/uncg.edu/swhayes/home

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July 7, 2010  3:00 ET  

While there are probably regional and local differences, increasingly mediators are being asked to work with families from a variety of native lands and cultures. This challenges the mediator and their process as fundamental principles of mediation may not always translate smoothly into those cultures and the disputes that will arise in a North American context. While there cannot be one answer to fit all cases, this teleseminar will explore the impact of culture on dispute resolution citing various examples involving first generation immigrants and Native American families.

 

Evan Ash has been a domestic mediator in Kansas’s Tenth Judicial District since 1995, and serves as the supervisor for its clinical mediation programs. His mediating experience began informally as a chaplain, and later with the Wichita Neighborhood Justice Center. He has taught mediation courses at Johnson County Community College and Missouri Western State University, made numerous presentations and written articles on mediation, grief and bereavement, anger, and other related topics. He is a past President of the Heartland Mediators Association and a member of the Standards/Ethics Sub-Committee of the Kansas Office of Judicial Administration=s Dispute Resolution Advisory Council. He is certified as an Advanced Practitioner of the Association for Conflict Resolution and served on the Family Section Advisory Council. He holds masters degrees from Seabury-Western Theological Seminary and the University of Nebraska. As an Episcopal Priest, he has served parishes and institutions in Nebraska, Oregon, and Kansas.

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