Mediation, Dialogue, and Conflict Resolution Training

picture representing conflict resolution

Unresolved conflict can carry real organizational costs, including lost time, strained working relationships, reduced collaboration, and avoidable disruption. Building employees’ capacity to navigate disagreement, facilitate dialogue, and de-escalate conflict strengthens day-to-day problem solving while helping organizations protect productivity, retain talent, and sustain healthier working relationships. These training options are designed to develop practical skills that support both individual effectiveness and organizational performance.

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This course examines disagreement through the frameworks of mediation, deliberative dialogue, and conflict resolution. Participants will explore how underlying interests, values, assumptions, and power dynamics shape conflict, and will practice strategies such as active listening, reframing, perspective-taking, de-escalation, and interest-based problem-solving. Emphasis is placed on sustaining constructive dialogue across difference, improving mutual understanding, and identifying areas of shared concern without requiring consensus.

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This course introduces the theory, ethics, and core practices of mediation as a facilitated process for conflict resolution. Participants will examine mediator neutrality and impartiality, confidentiality, informed consent, party self-determination, and the stages of the mediation process. Emphasis is placed on developing foundational skills in active listening, reframing, identifying interests, generating options, managing impasse, and supporting parties in reaching voluntary and mutually acceptable agreements.

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This course introduces foundational approaches to facilitating small-group dialogue across differing perspectives, experiences, and identities. Participants will examine principles of inclusive and deliberative dialogue, facilitator neutrality, psychological safety, group agreements, active listening, inquiry, reframing, and managing challenging group dynamics. Emphasis is placed on creating conditions for substantive exchange, supporting equitable participation, and helping groups remain engaged with complexity and disagreement without requiring consensus.

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This course examines structured dialogue models used to support collaborative problem solving in small-group settings. Participants will explore approaches for establishing conditions for constructive engagement, surfacing multiple perspectives, identifying underlying interests and assumptions, managing disagreement, and moving groups toward shared understanding and informed action. Emphasis is placed on facilitation practices that support equitable participation, reflective inquiry, deliberation, and collective learning when addressing complex or contested issues.

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Interactive Conflict Management Workshop (Part 1 of 4)

This interactive workshop introduces foundational concepts and practices for understanding and managing interpersonal conflict. Participants will examine common sources and patterns of conflict, consider how communication styles, perception, emotion, and power dynamics shape difficult interactions, and develop greater awareness of their own responses to disagreement. Emphasis is placed on practical conflict management and de-escalation strategies, including active listening, reframing, perspective taking, and responding constructively when tensions begin to escalate.

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To schedule training or request a training quote, contact Dr. Nancy Pratt, Executive Director, The Division of Lifelong Learning and Workforce Development.

Discounts are available for organizations contracting for training for multiple employees, as well as for employers enrolling three or more employees in an open-enrollment course.

Except where otherwise noted, course materials will be provided.

Resource Library Downloads

Bridging the Divide


Meet your Facilitator

Dr. Jennifer C. Batton, has 30 years’ experience in the field of conflict resolution/alternative dispute resolution and dialogue facilitation, working for state government, higher education and a non-profit to help local and global communities build their capacity to prevent, address and manage conflict. Her work includes eight years in state government (serving @ 3,600 primary and secondary public schools and 52 teacher training colleges and universities) as the Director of Education Programs for the Ohio Commission on Dispute Resolution and Conflict Management, seven years as the director of the Global Issues Resource Center at Cuyahoga Community College and international education work in 23 countries. She provided direct service to more than 71 colleges and universities, 600 primary and secondary schools, and hundreds of civil society and governmental organizations. She currently serves on the Advisory Board for the Center for Conflict Management at the University of Akron and coordinates the Ohio Peace and Conflict Studies Network.

With questions about developing a specialized training for your company or if you have questions about course content, please contact Dr. Batton: J.C.Batton@csuohio.edu

Executive Director
Nancy M. Pratt, Ph.D.
n.pratt@csuohio.edu