NVC Teaching Materials

NVCnextgen’s Peer Mediation Curriculum Outline

Understanding Conflict and It’s Solution

  1. Why Solving Conflicts Matters
    1. Personal stories about conflict both, the stress and losses of unsolved conflict
    2. Conflict defined: A struggle over difference with strong feelings and strong positions
    3. What makes conflict good or bad? How we handle it!
    4. Conflict is inevitable and natural.  Conflict is actually the way we learn about ourselves and others
    5. What makes conflict so uncomfortable? The issue of safety, emotional and physical
    6. Myths and Truths about conflict poster
    7. Conflict Escalator Poster 
    8. Conflict Iceberg Poster
  1. Active Listening skills
    1. Role of misunderstanding plays an important part in every conflict. Our listening skills 15/85
    2. Active listening RSVP: Reflecting, Summarizing, Validating Feelings & Empathizing with Needs
    3. The role of our feelings play in conflict: telling us about mattering
    4. Practice Validating Feelings: Large group story telling and guessing
    5. Digging Deeper into Conflict: Underlying Needs: Why they are important
  1. Communicating What Mediation Is and Is Not
    1. The reasons why we sometimes need outside help to solve conflict
    2. Meet & Greet: the skill of welcoming to Peer Mediation session 
    3. Mediation is Poster: A safe place to work together by talking it out to solve our problems
    4. What Mediation is Poster: Voluntary, Confidential, Seeking Win-Win Solution
    5. What Mediation is not Poster: Judgement, Punishment, Decisions for you, Advice
    6. 6 steps Mediation Process Poster
      1. Agree To Mediate
      2. Listen to both points of view and their feelings, reflecting and summarizing 
      3. Focus on Needs, guessing underlying connecting Needs
      4. Brainstorm for solution
      5. Select the best solution(s) ( are they specific, doable and fair)
      6. Write down the agreement and sign

  1. The Mediation Process
    1. Practice Setting up seating for Peer Mediation & getting consent
    2. Ground Rules Poster: Be honest, Be a good listener, Be respectful,  Be looking for a win-win
    3. Mechanics of listening to both points of view, asking helpful open ended questions 
    4. Focus on Underlying Needs before brainstorming for solutions 
    5. Brain storming Poster: non-judgmental, rapid fire ideas that would solve the problem for both parties
    6. Selecting best solution Poster: Criteria, specific vs general, doable vs wishful, fair to both vs one side
    7. Write and Sign the agreement about future behavior towards one another
    8. Celebrating and congratulating disputants efforts

  2. Mediation simulations: Practice Practice Practice
    1. Become familiar with all aspect of mediation: getting comfortable & getting feedback for improvement 
    2. Handling difficult situations
    3. Timing and the value of connecting questions
    4. Staying neutral
    5. Owning the process not the outcome

Also, you can visit CNVC’s resources and bookstore for additional teaching materials.

COURAGEOUS COMMUNICATION: a Nonviolent Communication Curriculum for the
Maine Coastal Regional Reentry Center by Peggy Smith, CNVC certified NVC Trainer

Practice Group Curriculum:  Ultimately, your group will develop its own set of favorite things to do, big groups, small groups, empathy sessions, practice exercises, role-plays and heart-connected discussion. All have a place in practice groups. The following is a typical format for an evening. Many groups have found it helpful to start with a general structure and then make changes based on the needs of the group from there. This way members get more learning and less “process” in the beginning and it contributes to harmony, ease and learning.

The LIFE CurriculumLiving in Passion and Restoring our Wholeness through Compassion. The LIFE Program is a two-year, intensive program focused on the two-fold path of Living in Passion and Restoring our Wholeness through Compassion. Each of the four retreats will introduce practices and processes that serve this integration and development. The program will follow a developmental sequence going from inner work to application in relationship and community.

Mindful Schools: This eight-week online course* offers an opportunity to deepen your mindfulness practice by exploring the realm of interpersonal communication in all aspects of your life: personal, social, and professional. In it, long-time Mindful Schools teacher and communication expert Oren Jay Sofer draws upon the tools and insights of mindfulness practice, the internationally used system of Nonviolent Communication, and the science of nervous system regulation. Videos, exercises and detailed lecture notes guide you through a step-by-step, integrated approach to understanding and transforming your communication.