There are also additional courses we provide for young people and the adults who work with them but which are less often part of our routine activities.
For Young People:
We also offer courses and workshops for Peer Mentors which develop skills for offering one to one peer support and a four day Workshop Leaders Course, training young people to design and deliver workshops or their peers. Both these programmes may be delivered in the school context or for other youth agencies.
What young people have said about the Workshop Leaders Course: . ‘I learned that conflict is an opportunity and there are ways to prevent it in some cases.’ ‘I definitely learned more and saw things I had learned before in a different perspective.’ ‘I wanted to understand better ways of managing conflict situations. This expectation was met and so much more!’
We have also designed an accredited 10 week ‘Peace Builders’ Course’ which we deliver as the training component of our TRUCE 2020 project. It includes 10 two and a half hour sessions, a residential weekend and one full day of additional training. This course covers communication and conflict resolution skills; facilitation and workshop design; and third party mediation training. See the TRUCE 2020 page for more information.
Courses for Adults Working With Young People:
One of the key programmes we offer is a 5 day course in Conflict Resolution and ‘Third Siding’ Skills for Learning Mentors and other professionals working in schools. This course explores our own self-awareness when it comes to dealing with conflict, develops new skills and models for communicating and resolving conflict, explores intercultural aspects of conflict and builds skills for supporting others in conflict using third party intervention techniques.
We also offer a Mentoring Course for adults working with young people. This series of workshops develop active listening skills and addresses other issues arising in the mentoring situation. We also deliver a 4 day programme in ‘Setting Up and Delivering Peer Mediation Programmes’. This course equips participants with an understanding of the values and dynamics of peer mediation and the support within the school community needed to sustain a peer mediation project. It also includes an active ‘training of trainers’ dimension as participants practice delivering parts of the course during their training. Our Mid Day Assistant training equips support staff working on the playground and dinner hall to support children during play and lunch periods. This programme may also be shaped to help Mid Day assistants support the work of peer mediators.
What participants have said about the 5 Day Conflict Resolution and ‘Third Siding’ Skills Course: ‘This has been the best course I have been on.’ ‘The training will be very useful and relevant to my work in school.’ ‘The course has been really useful and has even changed my family life!’ ‘Stimulating and thought provoking.’
We are also able to deliver bespoke programmes for teaching and non-teaching staff designed in consultation with schools or other agencies focusing on cross cultural communication, empathy skills, inter-staff relationships, and working with challenging behaviour.
