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Presented by Community Mediation Center
Monday, September 22, 2025 | 9:30 AM – 4:00 PM | Zoom

Free for CMC Volunteers, $60 for non-volunteers

Conflicts can escalate quickly — and it’s not always easy to know how to respond. Whether you’re a mediator, attorney, service provider, or community member, this full-day training will equip you with practical tools to recognize signs of escalation, assess risk, and respond with confidence, clarity, and compassion.

This interactive workshop blends lecture, small group activities, and roleplay-based learning. Together, we’ll explore the stages of conflict escalation, common triggers, and early warning signs. We’ll take a deep dive into how trauma can shape conflict behavior and how we can build trust through trauma-informed communication. You’ll learn how to assess for safety — both physical and emotional — and how to respond skillfully in volatile or emotionally charged moments.

We’ll also cover concrete de-escalation tools, including both verbal and non-verbal techniques, emotional regulation strategies, and ways to re-engage and reconnect after conflict. Special attention will be given to repairing ruptures and rebuilding trust, both during and after conflict.

By the end of the day, you’ll leave with increased confidence and a toolkit of de-escalation strategies that are grounded in empathy, awareness, and real-world practice.

Who Should Attend:
Open to all CMC volunteers, local attorneys and mediators, nonprofit professionals, service providers, and community members.

To register, email jen.comiskey@2mediate.org.

Exploring Narratives in Mediation
Saturday, September 13, 2025 | 10:00am–12:30pm ET | Zoom
Free for CMC volunteers | $40 for non-volunteers

This event has been approved for 2.5 hours General/Family CME.

Every conflict has a story — and how that story is told can shape the entire mediation process. In this interactive online workshop, we’ll explore how mediators can work skillfully with the narratives people bring to conflict: the roles they see themselves and others playing, the assumptions they hold, the meanings they attach to past events, and the visions they carry for the future.

We’ll dive into how conflict narratives are shaped by emotion, identity, memory, and power — and how they can be both limiting and transformative. Through discussion, demos, and practical tools, we’ll cover strategies to:

• Invite and listen deeply to each person’s story

• Identify patterns, perspectives, and underlying values

• Unpack assumptions and explore alternate interpretations

• Use timelines, visuals, and reflective questions to map and shift narratives

• Promote shared understanding and mutual responsibility

• Support parties in imagining new endings and next chapters

This workshop is great for mediators of all experience levels who want to build their skills in narrative-based mediation, deepen their curiosity, and support clients in seeing their story — and each other — in new ways.

You’re Invited: CMC Skills Workshop — Asking Powerful Questions in Mediation
🗓 Saturday, July 12, 2025
🕙 10:00 AM – 12:30 PM ET
📍 Zoom

Free for CMC Volunteers | $40 for Non-Volunteers
(Includes interactive workbook + 2.5 hours of General/Family CME credit)

In this interactive online workshop, we’ll explore how mediators can use questions not just to gather information, but to build trust, shift perspective, and support self-reflection. We’ll examine how the right question at the right time can help people untangle conflict narratives, identify what really matters, and move toward collaborative problem-solving.

Designed for mediators of all experience levels, this session blends short lectures with skill demonstrations, practical frameworks, and real-world scenarios. Together, we’ll look at question strategies for common mediation challenges — like when someone feels stuck, overwhelmed, positional, or full of assumptions — and how to gently invite people into more constructive and empathetic dialogue.

Participants will receive a printable workbook full of examples and exercises they can use in the workshop and beyond. You’ll also get a chance to learn from a few common “oops” moments — and how to take a more skillful second try.

Whether you’re new to mediation or a seasoned volunteer looking to sharpen your toolbox, this is a great opportunity to deepen one of our most powerful tools: curiosity.

🔍 Workshop Highlights:

• Learn strategies to build trust, shift perspective, and promote empathy

• Practice using questions to explore conflict narratives and uncover core interests

• Watch short demos of common challenges

• Explore realistic scenarios with fellow mediators

• Take home a workbook for reflection and skill-building

📝 RSVP to reserve your spot by emailing jen.comiskey@2mediate.org.  Volunteers attend free; all others are welcome to register for $40. We’ll follow up with the Zoom link and workbook closer to the event.

You’re Invited: CMC Virtual Screening & Discussion — Split and Split Up
🗓 Saturday, June 7, 2025
🕙 10:00 AM – 12:30 PM ET
📍 Zoom (link provided upon RSVP)

This event has been approved for 2.5 hours of General/Family CME.

Join us for a special online event hosted by the Community Mediation Center where we’ll screen two powerful short documentaries — Split and Split Up — and engage in a thoughtful discussion about how we can better support families and children through mediation.

About the Documentaries:
Directed by acclaimed filmmaker Ellen Bruno, Split (Part 1) offers a rare and moving glimpse into the lives of children navigating their parents’ separation. Told entirely from the child’s point of view, it features candid interviews with kids ages 6–12 as they process the initial stages of family breakup.

Split Up (Part 2) revisits these same children 10 years later. Now young adults, they reflect on how their parents’ separation shaped their lives, relationships, and sense of self.

These films are not just educational — they’re deeply human and emotionally resonant. CMC has secured a one-year streaming license for both films, which we plan to make available to co-parents preparing for mediation.

Who Should Attend:
This event is especially recommended for CMC family mediators, staff, and volunteers, but all are welcome. The goal is to gain insight into how separation and divorce impact children — and how we as mediators can encourage parents to center their children’s needs.

💬 A group discussion will follow the screenings.

Please let us know if you can attend by emailing jen.comiskey@2mediate.org, and we’ll send you a calendar invite with the Zoom link. We hope to see you there for this important conversation!

Join us for an engaging online workshop (10am-1:30pmET) where trainees will acquire practical skills for defusing and de-escalating conflicts. Explore the factors that trigger escalation, physical and emotional responses to conflict, and effective strategies for managing intense emotions. Learn how to bring a stabilizing presence to the mediation room and differentiate between anger and rage. Dive into the dynamics of the shame-rage spiral and discover constructive ways to address anger and shame. We will also discuss ways to build trust and rapport, as well as to understand the impact of trauma on individual responses. Through interactive small group activities and roleplays, this event provides practical insights to enhance your conflict resolution skills.  This event is open to mediators as well as other community members who are interested in learning de-escalation strategies.  Registration is free for all volunteers and $60.00 for non-volunteers.  Register HERE.

3 hours of CME/CLE pending.

Join our 90-minute workshop where we’ll delve into the effective use of caucuses during joint session mediations. As mediators, we understand the value of facilitating direct conversations between parties. Utilizing caucuses strategically can be pivotal in navigating negotiations from potential deadlock to resolution. In this session, we’ll focus on practical strategies to optimize caucuses, including improving communication dynamics, addressing concerns, understanding emotions, providing impartial guidance, and reality-checking to aid parties in formulating viable solutions. Our discussion will center on maintaining a non-directive and neutral approach, finding a balance between private discussions and collaborative engagement, and upholding confidentiality while propelling the mediation process forward.

This event will take place ONLINE, over Zoom, and is free to volunteers of community mediation centers, and $30.00 for non-volunteers.  Register HERE.

1.5 hours of CME/CLE Pending

As mediators, we understand that despite our best efforts, impasses can arise during mediation.  Let’s come together to discuss why some mediations reach a standstill and explore a range of tools that can help parties see the conflict from a fresh perspective.

We will start by looking at the three types of impasse – substantive, emotional, and procedural. Then we will discuss practical tools for breaking impasse in the following ways: shifting perspective; looking to the future; encouraging mutuality; externalizing and naming the conflict; exploring the costs of conflict; building momentum; utilizing a caucus; taking breaks; reality-checking; and appropriate mediator input. There will be a combination of lecture, demo videos, small group work, and large group discussions. We will finish by examining hypothetical scenarios as a group. Everyone will get a workbook with examples, reflection prompts, and sample scripts for the various tools we discuss.

This 2-hour interactive workshop will take place on Saturday, November 18 from 10:00am-12:00pmET. It will be free to all volunteers who want to attend!

Location to be determined, but it will be In Person.

CME/CLE Pending.  CME is free to volunteers but CLE is $5/hour.

To sign up, click HERE.

Time to sign up for CMC’s Spring fundraiser—a run/walk to be held at Ijam’s Nature Center in beautiful South Knoxville, Tennessee.  This year, we will reprise our Peace Out 2021 virtual event.  Peace Out 2023 will be in-person and will take place in the heart of Knoxville’s urban wilderness.

Check in begins at 7:30am and the race start-time is 9am.  Run or walk, fast or slow, around Ijam’s beautiful trails and City Greenway.  Participate as an individual, or in a friend/family group.  The cost is $45/person (children 10 and under are free).  In return, you get a t-shirt, a swag bag with vouchers for Fanatic beer (on site, along with KARM Urban Table food truck), PLUS that good feeling of having supported an organization which takes care of our community by mediating hundreds of disputes each year.  Take a look at our amazing sponsors!  Yes, there will be prizes! (And the Urban Table breakfast menu looks delicious.)

If you don’t feel like getting out to exercise, you can donate with the click of a button!    REGISTER OR DONATE HERE.