This highly interactive 3-day (civil mediation) or 5-day (civil and family mediation) training begins to prepare participants to conduct civil and/or family mediations, including divorce and child custody mediations. Participants develop their mediation skills through role-plays and interactive exercises and receive extensive one-on-one coaching and written evaluations of their skill development from coaches with a wide range of experience in a variety of types of civil and family mediation. The training covers a variety of topics, including:
- The causes and dynamics of conflict;
- Listening skills;
- Negotiation theory;
- Interests vs. positions – getting at the real goals in a conflict;
- Diversity, power, and conflict;
- Mediation techniques, and much more.
Completion of the entire 40-hour training meets the mediation training requirement for Missouri Supreme Court Rule 17 (general civil mediators) and Rule 88 (family mediators). Individual Circuits may have additional requirements for mediators who wish to receive court referrals. This training has also previously been approved for mediators in several other states. For more information on state approvals, please email CDR@missouristate.edu.
This training provides either 24 hours (for the 3-day options) or 40 hours (for the 5-day option) of continuing education credit for attorneys, counselors, social workers, and human resource professionals, among others.
Missouri State University faculty and staff may apply their $150 non-credit course fee waiver towards the total cost of the training.
This training is offered by the Center for Dispute Resolution (part of the Department of Communication at Missouri State University) in collaboration with the Alternative Dispute Resolution Program at Washington University School of Law.
