The CAOS Mediation Training Course

Mediation Accreditation? Click Here to get the 'low down' on this ambiguous issue in the mediation world.

At CAOS Conflict Management, we don't want to "train you and leave you", we want to help you develop into an effective, practising Mediator and support you in this beyond the training course. Read further down this page to see how we do this.

Some comments from past trainees - (see also comments in the column to the right):

"I feel like this course is infiltrating into all aspects of my life right now! I'm currently really busy managing a team of students and I think I'm a better listener and a more empowering leader because of the course." - Rebecca Howard who attended our February 2012 Mediation Training Course

"Just a quick update, everythings going really well. I've got 16 open cases at the minute, and on average have two appointments a day!" - Chantelle Bramley who attended our February 2012 Mediation Training Course

If you would you like to be trained in the CAOS Conflict Management approach to mediation:

• We provide more than a Practitioners Certificate at the end of the course, we also provide support beyond the course via monthly, low cost opportunities to continually review and improve your practise as a member of our Learning Community of Mediators
• Our training has been provided for the last 12 years to over 300 staff at Universities, Local Authorities, Community organisations and to Community Mediation services to enable them to practise as Mediators.
• We can also provide support in setting up your Mediation Practice and marketing it, in whatever field(s) you want to provide it.

We are offering a mediation training course in our unique approach to mediation.

The CAOS approach does not rely on those involved in a dispute agreeing to a face-to-face or 'joint' meeting before it can assist them in resolving their difficulty. It happens or it doesn't. Our approach to mediation can assist disputants whatever their level of involvement in the process.

(Please note, we don't mean that we use Shuttle Mediation)

Many mediators become disillusioned with mediation when they find they cannot 'get the parties to a joint meeting'.

Our mediation training course provides trainees with:

• The skills to facilitate the creative thinking of any party or parties they work with, whether individually or in a face-to-face meeting, such that new, more effective ways of responding to their dispute can be created.
• A recognition that 'successful mediation' or 'resolution' of a dispute is not dependent on the parties meeting in the presence of a mediator.
• The learning that the CAOS approach to mediation is fundamentally about supporting the empowerment of individuals to create their own, more effective ways of responding to their difficulties.

If you choose to join us, some of the Skills you will enhance on the course include:

• Creative Questioning Skills to support the creativity of disputants
• Recognising and managing your own assumptions
• Recognising and managing your 'Rescuer' which undermines your effectiveness as a mediator.
• A simple but powerful approach to continuous, reflective learning to develop your mediation practise beyond the training course.

We have learned from experience that a face-to-face or joint meeting was an optional, not an essential, aspect of what mediation can offer and still it can support resolution.

Where a face-to-face or joint meeting does not occur, the mediators can still support individuals in finding self-supporting ways of responding to their dispute, which can, in itself lead to a resolution of their situation.

Are you interested in learning the CAOS approach to mediation? CAOS Conflict Management offers more than just the mediation training course. We can also help you plan your Mediation practice before the training and help you market it and set up the necessary systems beyond the training if you want help with this. Click here to find out more about what we offer.(Opens new page)

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"It only takes one person to end a war, and you're the one. What a perfect set up!" - Byron Katie

Many disputes become 'stuck' because there is a continual expectation for the other person involved in the dispute to change.

This dependency situation can become chronic if the party or parties affected by the situation make this the only option for resolution.

Taking such a perspective disempowers the individual as it leads to a belief that the only option for resolution to occur lies outside of themselves, implying they are somehow 'irrelevant' to its resolution. When both parties to a dispute adopt this view there is an inevitable impasse.

But Mediators themselves can become 'stuck' when they want to 'get' parties to a joint meeting and they don't want to go.

Mediation training can often focus more on ways of 'getting the parties to a joint meeting' than on simply supporting any disputant in finding more effective ways of responding, whether in a joint meeting or individually.

It doesn't have to matter.

If a mediator adopts an approach where it does matter, it can render them as powerless and frustrated in their own practise as the disputants are in their conflict.

The CAOS Mediation Training Course trains you in the CAOS approach which allows all contacts made with a party experiencing conflict to become an opportunity for them to create more effective ways of responding to their dispute, whether on the telephone, or at an individual meeting with the party, or in a face-to-face meeting between all the parties in dispute.

If our Mediation Training Course sounds interesting to you, please CONTACT CAOS to register your interest.

The CAOS approach to mediation has been developed by Alan Sharland, Director of CAOS Conflict Management over the last 17 years through practice and management of organisations working in Community Mediation, mainly in the field of neighbour disputes but also in other areas such as Workplace mediation, University Student Complaints mediation, Group mediation, National Health Service Complaints mediation, Mediation of complaints relating to disability provision and others such as Family conflict mediation.

Mediation, as we understand it, supports the empowerment of individuals to create more effective ways of dealing with their difficult situations.

If we make it a 'requirement' that those involved meet face-to-face in a meeting facilitated by us, before we say we can assist them, then we are at risk of failing in our aim of supporting empowerment, as we are implying that participants have to 'depend' on us to be able to resolve their dispute.

But of course there may be many other ways in which they would rather work their way through their dispute towards resolution, none of which may require our presence.

The CAOS Mediation Training Course trains mediators in an approach which acknowledges this.

Please note: Our Mediation Training Course does not involve Shuttle Mediation which we do not practice as an approach to mediation.