Join us for “Making Connections with Opening Statements: Laying Foundations for Productive Mediation” presented by The State of Hawaii Judiciary Center for Alternative Dispute Resolution: Monday, October 14, 2019 1:30 PM – 3:40 PM (check in 12:45 PM – 1:15 PM) Ali’iolani Hale (Hawai’i Supreme Court Courtroom) Free Event! Through demonstrations and deconstructing mediation opening statements, this live panel presentation will provide mediators with best practices and tactics for building rapport, credibility, and trust during the first phase of mediation. A lesson in nonverbal communications will give participants more tools for setting the stage and managing a fair and impartial process. Participants will leave with a heightened self-awareness of their professional conduct and better understanding of the impact first impressions have on setting the stage for productive discourse in mediation and other settlement discussions. CLE credits available. Approximately 80 seats in the room and seats will fill fast. Register at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/101419oahu. More information see flyer -> 20191014 Making Connections with Opening Statements. For inquiries contact CADR@courts.hawaii.gov. For more events happening in Hawaii you may also be interested, please check out our event page.
Author: Lisa Nakao
The Mediation Center of the Pacific, Inc is hosting a one and a half day advanced practice workshop in December for experienced mediators, facilitators, conflict managers and collaboration experts. The workshop is designed and presented by Peter Adler, PhD. and Lou Chang, Esq. This workshop is for highly experienced mediators, facilitators, and collaboration experts who have worked on many cases or projects over many years and now want to explore inner and outer frontiers. There are three specific objectives: Broaden and deepen practices for experienced collaboration experts Advance and cross-pollinate our many practices with new tools, ideas, and competencies Stimulate collective and individual foresight on the future of mediation For registration and more information: https://mcp808.wufoo.com/forms/mediation-and-conflict-management-master-class/ Conflict Management Master Class Please fill out the application completely. (Seating is limited to 24)
We hope you had a great weekend celebrating the International Day of Peace this past Saturday. As we continue our work on peacebuilding, it is important to maintain our own health & happiness within to be effective in our work. Many of us try to eat healthy and exercise for this reason. While these are important actions, it is not always easy. The good news is, there is also a much simpler action you can take that will help you. Science seems to show that “being kind” positively impacts both!** To helps us all stay healthy and happy, and to celebrate International Day of Non-Violence on October 2, World Smile Day on October 4, National Do Something Nice Day on October 5, Conflict Resolution Day on October 17, and National I Care About You Day on October 25, we are bringing back the “5:1 Kindness Challenge” in the month of October. This year, we are also hosting Images of Kindness Contest at the same time. We hope you can join us! Go to http://www.crahawaii.org//51-kindness-challenge-2019/ to find out the 5:1 Kindness Challenge and Contest details. **References “The Importance of Kindness” by Karyn Hall Ph.D. – Psychology Today Dec 04, 2017 “The amazing health benefits of kindness” by Michael Roizen, M.D., and Mehmet Oz, M.D. – MSN.com Sep 20, 2019
Aloha! New Free Brown Bag Event on 8/29/19, “Busting Arbitration Myths: Perception vs. Reality” by Lance Tanaka, Vice President of AAA, was just posted on the event page. There will be 1 CLE credit for attending this presentation. Seating is limited to 30 and the ticket is going quickly. Register now at https://bit.ly/2yZAdA1 Many exciting training opportunities and networking events for peacebuilders are coming up in Hawaii. Check out at our event page so you will not miss them.
Sharing a message from one of ACR Hawaii Members, Chuck Crumpton. (Thank you Chuck for reaching out!) To all Hawaii ADR supporters, Next year’s ABA Section of Dispute Resolution’s annual spring conference, in New Orleans April 22-25, 2020, promises to be one of the best ever, a premier collection of diverse programs, an exceptional networking opportunity, and timed perfectly to enjoy the incredible New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival April 23-26 and April 30-May 3, 2020. The link to create and submit program proposals for the conference, and to the conference, is at: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/dispute_resolution/events_cle/annual/conf_rfp/. We hope that you and your colleagues will submit program proposals and join us at the conference. In addition to the DR Section’s conference, a group of us involved in commercial and public policy ADR, including the peerless Peter Adler, is putting together a special set of panel programs on innovative strategies in complex commercial and in complex public policy conflict resolution with and at Tulane Law School Sunday, April 26, 2020, after the DR Section’s conference. If you may be interested in being part of those programs, please let me know and I’ll send you more information on them. We hope to get together top ADR, corporate, government, consumer and other professionals to share stories, experiences and insights on innovative commercial and public policy conflict resolution that will not only enlighten but also inspire the law school and ADR communities, and to enable live-streaming and recording of these programs for educational uses and expanded outreach. Initial responses from some top ADR people in various sectors have been enthusiastically receptive, subject of course to their schedules, and we hope to offer a diverse combination of experiences and perspectives. Depending on interest, this could be a good opportunity for Hawaii ADR professionals to contribute to what…
Information about the upcoming Ceeds of Peace Workshops: Participants will learn from the founders — Dr. Kerrie Urosevich and Dr. Maya Soetoro-Ng — and staff about 360-degree approach to raising peacebuilding leaders via the 7 “Ceeds” — critical thinking, courage, conflict resolution, compassion, connection, collaboration, and commitment. The 3-Part Workshop will be held on 8/24/19, 10/26/19, and 1/25/20 at the 100th Infantry Battalion Veterans Education Center. For more information, see flyer: CoP 2019-2020 WS (2) (1) (1) Register at www.ceedsofpeace.org/workshops.
Our State Ombudsman, Robin Matsunaga, is recommending one of the pre-registration workshops to ADR professionals in Hawaii and asked if we would get the word out. Robin says, “Although most of the sessions being offered during the main conference may be too specific to ombudsman work, some of the members of Hawaii’s ADR community might find them of interest. One session that I think would be of value for anyone in the dispute resolution field is the one-day pre-conference workshop titled Dealing with Unreasonable Complainant Conduct. This workshop has consistently received high ratings from participants.” Here is s description of the workshop: Unreasonable complainant conduct (UCC) can take up an inordinate amount of an agency’s time and resources. Participants will learn the strategies developed as part of a joint project by the nine Australian Parliamentary Ombudsman offices to deal with UCC. This very popular and world-renowned one-day workshop will provide participants with specific strategies and skills to effectively and confidently deal with UCC. It is designed for staff who come into contact with, or respond to, complainants or customers who display unreasonable conduct, as well as supervisors and senior management responsible for setting complaint handling policy. The workshop will also examine participant examples of UCC. Participants will learn: Strategies for managing UCC; Key messages for complainants/clients/staff; Ways to support staff in implementing strategies; and Staff health and safety considerations. The instructor is Donald Sword, Educator and Advocate, New South Wales, Australia. A full-day class. When: Monday, September 16 / Tuesday, September 17 Where: Hilton Waikiki Beach Hotel Registration fee: $275 for USOA members / $325 for non-members (After August 15, the fee increases by $50. ) The fee includes breakfast and lunch, plus morning and afternoon breaks. Attendance in each class is capped at 40. …
Sharing an interesting article… Originally posted at YesMagazine.org by Yasmeen Wafai on Jul 10, 2019 Research suggests that structured engagement with someone who holds divergent views can be transformative, even without a concrete resolution. Putting two people with diametrically opposed viewpoints in a room together may seem frightening to most, but one research lab has been doing it for nearly 20 years. The Difficult Conversations Lab was founded in the early 2000s by Peter Coleman, a professor of psychology and education at Columbia University. He said the lab was created to study deeply rooted, complicated, and hard-to-solve conflicts. He wanted to understand why conflicts in families, communities, and in the international arena get stuck in a destructive pattern. He based his idea for the lab on other projects like the Gottman Institute’s Love Lab for couples therapy. Coleman said researchers at the lab measure people’s attitudes on a series of issues through surveys, then find people who are on opposite sides of a particular issue and invite them to the lab for a conversation. They choose currently relevant topics like abortion, free speech, race relations, and politics. Researchers study the conditions under which the conversations go well, or well enough, whether the participants continue to speak with each other, and where they stop the conversations out of frustration, he said. Contrary to expectation, these conversations do not always go sour and are sometimes constructive, Coleman said. It is not that participants are solving the issues themselves, but they are creating the space to learn something about themselves, the issue, and other viewpoints. “What we’re doing is not some sort of magical experience that transforms people,” Coleman said. The lab has conducted several hundred conversations, and the research is ongoing, he said. The conclusions the team have reached so far depend on…
Our New Events Page
Aloha everyone, We have a new event calendar! We would love to post as many of the peacebuilding / conflict resolution related events in our new Events page. Please e-mail your event information to acrhawaiichapter@gmail.com so we can post it in our event page to spread the words about your awesome event. Mahalo!
Sharing Lanai Today Article on Mediation
Sharing a nice article published in May 2019 issue of Lana’i Today contributed by one of our Board members, Tricia Morris: Even in the Land of Aloha and Rainbows, conflicts and disputes arise in our daily lives. Hawaii has a long and beautiful tradition of resolution and facilitation of disputes. In each community, there was an elder or wise-one who was respected by others. They were neutral witnesses who helped the disputing parties resolve their conflicts in a peaceful way. This tradition has inspired the current facilitators / peacemakers such as Dr. Peter Adler, who was the Founder and Executive Director of The Neighborhood Justice Center in Honolulu in 1979. This later became the Mediation Center of the Pacific. More recently, I, the writer of this article, became similarly inspired. The courtroom is a relatively modern method of settling conflict. Mediation and facilitation of resolutions compares very favorably with similar matters that have been taken thru the Courts. Courtrooms often exacerbate the hostility between people, while mediation restores harmony. Courts have limited time and the “arguments” are directed to the legal advantage and intellectual perspective. Relationships are usually damaged further in court proceedings where in mediation they are generally preserved or enhanced. Mediation allows parties a chance to be heard, to express their grievances or defenses at an emotional level and be heard within a safe environment. The meetings are facilitated by an impartial trained mediator, often called a Neutral. This leads to a productive dialogue and negotiation with intent toward a mutual solution that is acceptable to both parties. Life happens. Conflicts are valuable in that they allow people to express the hurts, upsets, and differences that occur with living and relating. Too often “sweeping under the rug” leads to unexpressed feelings and resentments that lead to more of…