Keynote Presentation:
Effective Conflict Engagement: Harvesting the Wisdom of Our Conflict

ADRNC is proud to welcome Dr. Phyllis Beck Kritek, author of Negotiating at an Uneven Table: Developing Moral Courage in Resolving Our Conflicts. Dr. Kritek’s keynote address will highlight her perspective on dealing with conflict in the context of one of the most persistent and difficult issues facing mediators today: addressing the impact of uneven power bases. Her presentation will explore one area in which she has particular interest and concern — bridging the chasm of differing generational perspectives. Dr. Kritek’s insights and unique vision on what she terms “constructive conflict engagement” are both practical and highly inspirational. The keynote address will include audience participation and the opportunity for dialogue.

Presenter: Dr. Kritek is an internationally known nurse scholar and writer, and a highly sought after speaker and consultant on a broad range of topics including conflict resolution, organizational development, leadership development, gender and diversity communications, generational relationships, and globalization. She is noted for her ability to create conceptual maps that assist individuals and groups in grappling with the challenges and dilemmas inherent in conflict situations.

Afternoon Sessions

Session 1A: Organizational Diplomacy: Achieving a Balance of Needs and Interests Despite Power Differences

Whether you call it dispute resolution, conflict management, mediation, facilitation, team building, strategic planning or otherwise, organizations need people who can help them address and resolve issues that impair organizational functioning, productivity and morale. This highly interactive session provides a general approach to working with organizations in order to help them address disputes that are historic, involve varying levels of power and authority, and require the careful orchestration of private caucusing and face to face dialogue to resolve differences in ways that are realistic to implement, accepted by all parties in the hierarchy and reflect a balance of needs and interests.

Presenter: Roberta Streimer has over 26 years experience as an independent organizational consultant, mediator and trainer with expertise in organizational assessment, dispute resolution, strategic planning, communication strategy, management training, program development, meeting facilitation, team building, training design and the training of trainers.

Session 1B: Principles in Action: A Panel on Restorative Justice Programs in Oakland, Marin, San Francisco and San Quentin

This workshop brings together four unique restorative justice programs represented by extraordinary people with distinct perspectives and varied experiences. Their collective wisdom will give mediators an understanding of the most important principles of restorative justice, and strategies for putting them into action. Please plan to participate with panelists in Q&A and discussion. Moderated by Melyssa Jo Kelly.

Presenters:

   Jack Dison, M.A., M.T.S., Ph.D., is a retired professor in sociology/criminology, and a facilitator with Insight Prison Project's intensive 22-week training program at San Quentin State Prison, the Victim Offender Education Group (VOEG).

Session 1C: The Role of Spirituality, Ritual and Mindfulness in the Resolution of Same Sex Dissolutions

The spiritual traditions teach that it is possible to wake up and see the world as it is, a place of inner-connected beings where one person’s well-being affects the well-being of everyone else. This presentation will explore methods the lawyer and therapist mediator can use to deepen and strengthen the mediation process, and will evaluate the practical, ethical and professional ramifications of including a spiritual component in dissolution mediation. The panelists will focus their discussion on how these issues emerge in unique and problematic ways for lesbians and gay men in their dissolutions.

Presenters:

Dr. Illana Berger is a spiritual counselor and healer in private practice in the San Francisco Bay Area, specializing in healing divorce and separation. She is the author of “The Snake and the Four Winds.” 

Frederick Hertz is an attorney and mediator in the San Francisco Bay Area, and is co-author of the Nolo Press “Legal Guide for Lesbian and Gay Couples.”

Session 1D: An Open Dialogue: Supporting and Encouraging Inclusion and Diversity in the ADR Field and in ADRNC

This facilitated open dialogue will look to Conference participants for reflections, suggestions and brainstorming on one of our most critical challenges: Bringing and enhancing inclusivity and diversity at ADRNC and in the ADR field more broadly. The forum will be open for participation in one or both of the afternoon workshop sessions. Facilitator(s): TBA.

Session 2A: How Lawyers Approach Mediation and How to Work with Them

Mediators who work in the litigation setting face a different challenge than many community mediators, to wit, lawyers. Learn what lawyers look for in mediators; how lawyers select mediators; how lawyers are trained; what the lawyers’ underlying interests are; how to harness their competitiveness; how to work with a lawyer who appears to be obstructing the process; and ways we can work with lawyers to enhance the process. This session is intended for mediators who would like to expand their practice in civil litigation mediation or fine-tune their existing practice.

Presenter: Nancy E. Hudgins is a lawyer and mediator who has specialized in civil litigation for 29 years, representing both plaintiffs and defendants in personal injury, medical malpractice, elder abuse and product liability lawsuits, but also in a wide variety of complex litigation, including civil rights, fraud and class actions. She mediates lawsuits filed in Bay Area courts.

Session 2B: Restorative Justice at San Quentin:

                  An In-Depth Interaction with Participants from the Insight Prison Project

This workshop offers a rare interactive opportunity to engage with some of the facilitators and panelists (survivor and offender) whose lives have been transformed through in a groundbreaking program at San Quentin State Prison offering voluntary, intensive 22 week training called the Victim Offender Education Group (VOEG) for inmates who wish to understand themselves better, how their life experiences and decisions led them to prison and how their crimes have impacted their victim(s), their families and their community. Join us as survivors, paroled offender and facilitators provide in-depth information about how the curriculum has positively impacted specific lives.

Presenters:

Rochelle Edwards, a licensed psychotherapist and Victim Offender Mediator of severe and violent crimes, working at San Quentin State Prison since 2001 in various rehabilitative capacities, and has been facilitating the Victim Offender Education Group (VOEG) since 2003.

Marcia Blackstock, Executive Director of Bay Area Women Against Rape (BAWAR), has been a leader in the rape crisis movement for the last 29 years. In 1988, BAWAR became the first rape crisis center to provide victim-centered rape awareness education programs to violent offenders by participating in California State Prison Solano’s Victim-Offender Reconciliation Group (VORG).

Bryan Smith, Inmate Participant in VOEG, recently released after twenty-five years in prison, obtained a Liberal Arts degree from Patton University while still incarcerated and now works as a Drug and Alcohol Counselor at Options Recovery Services in Berkeley.

Radha Stern is a Victim Rights advocate. The death of her son, Christopher, who was murdered with a handgun in 1996, led to her involvement with the Legal Community Against Violence, and the Insight Prison Project. She is a participant in the VOEG program providing perspective from victims and their families.

Jaimee Karroll, VOEG Faclitator, a survivor of a violent childhood assault, has been devoted to advocacy and education aimed at ending the cycle of violence for the past 19 years. She is currently co-facilitating this curriculum through Insight Prison Project in H-Unit in San Quentin Prison.

Session 2C: Harmonizing Mediation with Peace Activism

As mediators, we are neutrals, practicing out of public view in confidential sessions where we empathize with all parties, no matter what their politics or positions in life. As peace activists, we are anything but neutral, acting as adversarial advocates in public, disagreeing with those who support war or injustice, refusing to compromise our principles by ‘seeing the other side.’ Can we be both mediators and peace activists? This workshop will provide a space for dialogue about the seeming contradictions between the role of the neutral and that of the peace activist, and look at ways for harmonizing these two different world views with the same goal: peace.

Presenter: Sandy Shartzer is a long-time peace and justice activist who protested against the Vietnam War, served for six years on the board of directors of the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors, worked for the American Friends Service Committee and Peaceworkers, was active with the Marin Center for Peace & Justice and now works with the Marin Peace & Justice Coalition. For the last nine years, Sandy has been a paid staff mediator with Marin County Mediation Services, mediating everything from landlord-tenant disputes to business lawsuits to divorce.