CREATING CONNECTIONS DURING CONFLICT
With Caitlin Meredith & Hansa Patel
January 18, Wednesday | 5:30 - 7:30pm PST | Zoom

No one understands me!

This is a familiar feeling to anyone in conflict. We’re often reacting to misunderstandings, poor communication, and previous experiences. Not feeling understood builds walls between them ourselves and those we’re in conflict with. As conflict resolution professionals, we enter into this dynamic between the disputing parties, hoping to help. Sometimes, it’s hard to know how to communicate in a new way to shift the conversation from what happened to what’s next.

Based on Gary Friedman’s Understanding-Based Model, Hansa Patel and Caitlin Meredith’s interactive workshop will introduce techniques that help break through parties’ fight-and-flight responses to communicate more effectively with them. These techniques can help turn down the heat in difficult conversations to allow parties to better understand themselves and their needs, leading to more productive collaboration.

Caitlin and Hansa will also explore how we, as conflict resolution professionals, can navigate the feelings or judgements that naturally arises for us during our own conflict resolution work. (We’re only human like everyone else!) We will explore how awareness of our judgements and implicit bias can lead to better connections with parties and deepen our understanding of the conflict.

Through a combination of discussion, demonstrations, and role plays, you’ll get to experiment with:

• Learning compassionate and structured listening skills
• Building understanding between people in conflict
• Moving gracefully moving through tension
• Exploring what gets in the way of building connections with clients

In addition, you will be able to:

• Explore how to identify our own internal biases and judgments that may interfere with connecting with parties.
• Understand the fundamental concepts of the Understanding-Based Model of conflict resolution and what makes it different from other models.

TRAINERS

Hansa Patel
Hansa Patel is an attorney, mediator, and trainer. After advocating on behalf of abused and neglected children for fourteen years, Hansa now empowers parties to transform their relationships. Hansa is a certified mindfulness teacher, and she is certified to teach Gary Friedman’s understanding-based model. Hansa has taught mindful mediation in USA, including the California Judicial Council Family Court Mediators, Canada, and Africa. Learn more about Hansa here.

Caitlin Meredith
After working for thirteen years for Doctors Without Borders in African war zones, Caitlin is passionate about working in the midst of conflict as a mediator and coach. She mediates a wide variety of cases, including landlord-tenant, divorce, and inheritance battles. In addition, Caitlin is certified to teach Gary Friedman’s understanding-based model. She teaches mediation at the Monterey College of Law. Learn more about Caitlin here.