Training and facilitation

Our team of exceptionally dedicated facilitators is led by:

Susan Denton-Brown who is a former Head of Religious Education from West Sussex (1988-2006). She always had an interest in non-violence and conflict transformation and began to pilot Dealing with Conflict eight years ago in her classroom, contributing to its publication in 1999. She found it invaluable in developing the RE curriculum for her students (including GCSE classes). Inspired both by Dealing with Conflict and a later visit to Neve Shalom ~ Wahat al-Salam, she became one of the first British School for Peace trained facilitators, and therefore has the benefit of knowing the pack as a teacher and as a practitioner. She is also inspired by Mahatma Gandhi's non-violent approaches to conflict, and is developing training materials for the Gandhi Foundation UK, as well as working on her own educational resource.

Daniel Zylbersztajn is the Project Co-ordinator. He was until recently a doctoral researcher at University College London, reading violence in the context of Jewish and Black modern movements. Two of his many vocational qualifications are as a trained transformative community mediator and as a physical exercise therapist. He has a long-standing personal and academic commitment to non-violence. Daniel has been in the SfP in early 2009 to learn about the latest developments from the people who work there and used to opportunity to observe a very recent Palestinian / Jewish youth encounter - one month after the 2009 Gaza incursion.

Daniel's contact details

Our aim in the workshops is to provide a good understanding of the processes involved in conflict transformation, as practised by the world renowned mediation centre, The School for Peace (SFP) at Wahat al-Salam ~ Neve Shalom.

We have structured the workshops to suit two wider target groups:

A. Teachers and Educators
B. Community Leaders and professionals

A. Workshops for teachers and educators

Dealing with Conflict remains one of the very few teaching resources available to teachers that can be used with young persons and that is directly in line with RE, History, Sociology and Citizenship components of the National School Curriculum. Our special training for teachers builds on this in various ways:

• It highlights how the resource directly ties in with the National School Curriculum
• Guidance will be given in how to modify the teaching components to suit all target groups in education: from Primary to Further Education
• The training is suited to individual needs and concerns, and
• Allows teachers to build on their own teaching methods
• Empowers teachers by developing skills for managing tensions in their own educational context
• Enhances their experience of how conflicts arise and how they can be transformed
• Enables students to deal with their own conflicts more effectively, as well as helping them to understand and be more open to the role of mediation

We deliver the course in two sessions. The first session serves as a practical introduction; the second is a developmental review in which teachers can build upon and share their experience of using the pack. According to the facilitation leader, Susan Denton-Brown, the second session is almost more important than the first, because it reinforces the analytical thinking processes involved in conflict transformation.

B. Workshops for community leaders and professionals in dialogue (inter and intra faith, inter community)

Although Dealing with Conflict was initially devised for use in the classroom, we also adapt it as a resource for community professionals who have to deal with conflict situations on a regular basis. For example, as an aid to troubled youth situations. The workshops provide the following main features:

• Tailor-made workshops for specific target and interest groups
• Deeper understanding of how different identities and interest groups may come into conflict
• Tools to lead a transformative process, based on the model of the School for Peace between Jews and Palestinian Arabs
• Subjective understanding of how self-perception is related to inclusion/exclusion of other points of view. This course is also in two sessions: initial practical introduction, and review

 

Buy now £19.50 + p&p

For further information about facilitated workshops please contact
Daniel Zylbersztajn
T. 07843 630 760 / 02089524717
E. daniel.z@oasisofpeaceuk.org