Bridging Divides

Conflict Resolution Minnesota

Annual Conference
Friday, April 28, 2017
University of Minnesota
Continuing Education
Conference Center
1890 Buford Avenue
St. Paul, Minnesota 55108

Keynote Speaker: Ellie Krug President and Founder of

Human Inspiration Works, LLC.
Keynote Topic: Bridging Divides Perspectives on Grit,
Resiliency and the Four Commonalities

Keynote Speaker Ellen (Ellie) Krug is a graduate of Coe College and Boston College Law School. In 2009, while an Iowa civil trial
attorney with a record of 100+ trials, Ellie transitioned from male to female. She later became one of the few attorneys nationally to try
jury cases in separate genders. In 2011, she began Call for Justice, LLC, a Minneapolis legal nonprofit that connects low-income persons
with legal resources; in 2015, that nonprofit was conferred an American Bar Association award for innovatively increasing legal access.

The author of Getting to Ellen: A Memoir about Love, Honesty and Gender Change (2013) and a hopeless idealist, Ellie currently
speaks, trains and consults on diversity and inclusion to court systems, corporations, law firms, social service organizations, and
colleges/universities. In 2016, Advocate Magazine named Ellie one of 25 Legal Advocates Fighting for Trans Rights. She also writes for
Lavender Magazine and Lawyerist. Ellie, a self-described Inclusionist, launched her inclusion-oriented consulting company, Human
Inspiration Works, LLC in late 2016.

Accreditation
We are applying for 6 Standard CLE, 1.5 Ethics CLE, 1.5 Elimination of Bias CLE, 6 Rule 114 credits and 6
CEUs applied for to the Minnesota State Board of Social Work.
 CONFERENCE SCHEDULE
8:00 am - 8:30 am REGISTRATION and CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST
8:30 am 9:00 am WELCOMEBeth Bailey, President of CRM
9:00 am 10:30 am KEYNOTE
Bridging Divides: Perspectives on Grit, Resiliency and the Four Commonalities
Ellie Krug President and Founder of Human Inspiration Works, LLC.

Last years presidential election revealed deep political and social divides between various communities and groups, resulting in great
anxiety for many. For those engaged in healing and restorative work, the challenge is finding common ground to jumpstart conversations
and relationships fractured by words and fear. How to do this incredibly important work?
Weve entered a time when old formulas for conflict resolution need imaginative re-tooling and adjustment. With Gray Area
Thinking, an innovative toolset for compassionate inclusion, national speaker and trainer Ellen (Ellie) Krug offers an innovative way
of getting humans to think differently about those who are different from us.
Ellies keynote address will illustrate how healing practitioners can utilize Gray Area Thinking to bring together people and their
communities. Along the way, shell speak of being a transgender woman who bridged her own personal divides and will offer how all of
uspractitioner and client alikesimilarly share the grit, resiliency and core commonalities to close the spaces that divide so many.
10:30 am 10:45 am BREAK
10:45 am 12:15 pm SESSION I
A. Transgender 101
Ellie Krug, President and Founder of Human Inspiration Works, LLC.

Persons who are transgender have become far more visible, which is reflective of greater societal acceptance. Still, of the letters in the
LGBTQ alphabet (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer), the Ts (transgender persons) more often face unique challenges relative
to personal relationships, public interactions, and many other things that non-transgender persons (the technical phrase is cisgender)
take for granted. What does it mean to be a trans person? What can other humans do to make trans people feel welcomed and
accepted? What actions or words should they avoid? How does passing or not passing or the absence of legal rights in many states
play into a transgender persons daily life?
With Ellies Trans 101 presentation, audience members learn the basics about what it means to be transgender and get advice on
how to be inclusive toward anyone who identifies as trans. Using the above as a base, the presentation will pivot to how workplaces can
become more inclusive for all humans who are considered different from us.

B. Using Your Skills as Facilitators in Public Venues

Michael Gregory MBA, ASA, CVA, Chief Manager of Michael Gregory Consulting, LLC with panelists:
Dr. Raj Sethuraju, Assistant Professor, School of Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice
Mariah Levison, Manager, Bureau of Mediation Services, Office of Collaboration and Dispute Resolution
Anna Rios, Volunteer and Board Member, Dispute Resolution Center

After a brief introduction to the session, each of the panelists will make a 10-minute presentation on their work as facilitators in various
public venues including facilitating public group conversations, public housing leadership sessions and other venues. Following the
panelists presentations Dr. Raj Sethuraju will lead the group in small circles with a question(s) to demonstrate the application of a circle
keeper and discuss how this is different from a facilitative discussion. The group will discuss within their circles what worked and did not
work well in their circle and share this with the entire group. The panelists will provide additional commentary, share their observations of
the session and encourage participants to share their skills going forward in various public venues.

C. Making Mediation Mainstream

Larry Erikson, M.Ed Business Coach and Volunteer Mediator

Stalemate is an ever more frequent response to conflicting views about public policy, laws and personal relations. Entrenchment rather
than accommodation is becoming the norm, resulting in a fatigued, discouraged and cynical citizenry. As mediation professionals we use
a structured process to resolve stalemates. But what would our country be like if all citizens knew the principles of interest based
mediation and used them as their first choice for resolving conflicts within their marriage, family life, business dealings and community?
What if we could make mediation mainstream, the cultural norm? Join us in brainstorming ways to popularize the principles of mediation
and Make Mediation Mainstream.

12:15 pm 1:15 pm LUNCH

 CONFERENCE SCHEDULE
1:15 pm 2:45 pm SESSION II

D. Ethics for Family Mediators and Changes to Rule 114

Michael Black Mike Black, Esq, ADR Ethics Board
The presentation will focus on current ADR Ethics issues, best practices for avoiding ethical problems, and the features of the revised
Rule 114 relating to ethics issues. Participants will understand the ethical issues in ADR practice. They will also learn the best practices to
avoid ethical problems and how the proposed revisions to Rule 114 will affect ethical standards.

E. Kind Affect and Slow Processing: Trauma-Informed Restorative Practices

Nancy Riestenberg, Restorative Practices Specialist, Minnesota Department of Education
Students who have experienced traumain the house or in the community, through natural disasters, as the result of political events
bring their coping skills into the school, and sometimes those skills are at odds with the new environment. Students who have experienced
trauma need to be treated with respect, in ways that do not trigger shame or humiliation. Restorative practices, including circle to build
community and repair of harm processes, provide educators with tools that help teach and practice social and relationship skills. They
also provide adults with respectful, kind approaches to addressing harm or rule violations that may be the result of unmet needs
associated with trauma. Drawing upon research from the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (ACES) and universal precautions for
trauma, this session will review the core restorative practices in schools, and explore how those practices help to provide a safe
environment for all students, including students who have experienced trauma.

F. The Mediators High: Generative Listening

Elise Chambers, Program Director at Conflict Resolution Center
You can listen a person into being. This is the mediators high: listening so deeply, so mindfully, that a person emerges in the room
who wasnt there when the mediation began an authentic, openhearted person who is ready to engage in the act of co-creating a new,
inclusive way forward. In this experiential workshop, well start by looking at Theory Us 5 Stage Listening Process as a way to affect
interpersonal and organizational change in an inclusive, creative, energized way that bridges divides across demographics, ideologies and
positional thinking by changing the way the people in the room see themselves, each other and the issues. Next, well engage in a group
discussion of what Theory Us deep listening framework means to us as mediators, facilitators, conflict resolution professionals and as
people living in our communities facing our own divides. Finally, well break into a Pro-Action Caf session to design and collaborate on
the ideas we generate in our large group discussion. Come with an experience to share, a dream for a collaboration, or with an
openhearted mindfulness, ready to be present and together. Leave our workshop buoyed by renewed inspiration, new connections and a
refreshed perspective on how deep listening bridges divides.

2:45 pm 3:00 pm BREAK

3:00 pm 4:30 pm SESSION III
G. Domestic Violence in Mediation: How to Identify It and How to Respond
Marie Jos Brizard, Family Mediator, Co-Parenting Educator and Coach, Director of Parenting Through Transition LLC
In this session, participants will learn how to screen, differentiate types of Intimate Partner Violence/Abuse & Coercive Control,
recognize biases, and appropriately handle the mediation process. The presenter will explain how knowing about the history of IPV/A &
CC is relevant to the mediation process and outcome. The presenter will list at least 12 behaviors typical of Coercive Control. The
presentation will also focus on how beliefs, biases, misconceptions and misrepresentations of research findings affect the mediators
approach in cases involving IPV/A & CC. Self-awareness is the first step to bettering your mediation skills.
H. The Uneasy (yet lasting) Relationship Between Mediation and Restorative Practices
Ted Lewis, Restorative Justice Consultant and Trainer, Center for Restorative Justice and Peacemaking
Since the mid-1970s, restorative justice dialogue models have benefited greatly from the world of ADR mediation. In more recent
years, it is clear that ADR models have benefitted from insights coming out of restorative work, including the way harms and trauma can
be addressed. Indeed, both are wedded together by common commitments to empower people for safe, constructive conversations with
consensual outcomes. But this relationship has also been an uneasy one over the decades. Several restorative models operate outside the
bounds of many mediation standards and practices. Through interactive discussion and small group sharing, along with segments of
presentation and PowerPoint, participants will come to appreciate both the commonalities and differences in both realms. In discussing
cases that have both harm and dispute elements in them, participants will also gain a greater capacity to tailor processes which reflect the
strongest features of mediation and restorative justice. A typology of facilitated processes will be covered to distinguish victim offender
mediation from the conference, circle, and panel models. The metaphor of a long-term marriage relationship serves well to help people
understand both the challenges and opportunities inherent to this dynamic partnership.

I. High Conflict: Discussion and Discovery About Best Practices

Janet Rowles, Mediation Unlimited LLC
Using circle as a tool for deep listening and discovery, the participants will be guided through a discussion to illuminate their own fears
about high conflict. They will learn what it means to welcome conflict and why this is important to a high quality mediation practice.
They will leave with new ideas about ways to help open up conversations and with the tools to do a self check-in about interventions they
are intending to make.

CRM Conference April 28, 2017 Registration
Name: ______________________________________________Title: ________________________________________
Organization: ______________________________________________________________________________________
Address: _________________________________________________________________________________________
City: ________________________________________________State: ____________________Zip: _______________
Phone: __________________________________ Email Address: ___________________________________________

Please register me for the following:

CRM Members: _____ $125 Private Practitioner After April 17 _____ $140 Private Practitioner
_____ $85 Community Volunteer Mediator* After April 17 _____ $100 Community Vol. Mediator
CRM Membership: _____ $60 Annual Membership Become a Member Today and Save!

Non-Members _____ $190 Private Practitioner After April 17 _____ $205 Private Practitioner
_____ $150 Community Volunteer Mediator* After April 17 _____ $165 Community Vol. Mediator
*Community Volunteer Mediators are: Individual mediators who volunteer with a state-certified community dispute resolution program.
Full-Time Student: _____ $35 Registration for Member _____$85 Registration for Non-Members Students
_____ $20 Annual Student Membership *Scholarships Available, please see below.

Exhibit Space: _____ $100 CRM Members _____ $190 Non-Members

For information about promotion exhibit tables, contact CRM at (612) 361-9077 or email contact.conflictresolutionmn@gmail.com
Donation: _____ $Any Amount
CRM is a 501(c)3 and contributions are tax deductible. Total Amount Due: $__________
For Scholarships information, Please email Brent Lehman, President Elect, at Lehmansan@gmail.com
Session SelectionPlease circle one from each session time slot.

SESSION I
A Transgender 101, Ellie Krug, President and Founder of Human Inspiration Works, LLC
B Using Mediators as Facilitators in Public Venues, Michael Gregory, MBA, ASA, CVA, MN Supreme Court Qualified Mediator
C Making Mediation Mainstream, Larry Erikson, Business Coach and Volunteer Mediator

SESSION II
D Ethics for Family Mediators and Changes to Rule 114, Mike Black, Esq, ADR Ethics Board
E Kind Affect and Slow Processing: Trauma-Informed Restorative Practices, Nancy Riestenberg, Restorative Practices Specialist,
Minnesota Department of Education
F The Mediator's High: Generative Listening, Elise Chambers, Esq, Program Director, Conflict Resolution Center

SESSION III
G Domestic Violence in Mediation: How to Identify It and How to Respond, Marie Jos Brizard, Family Mediator, Co-Parenting
Educator and Coach, Director of Parenting Through Transition LLC
H The Uneasy (yet Lasting) Relationship Between Mediation and Restorative Dialogue, Ted Lewis, Restorative Justice Consultant
and Trainer, Center for Restorative Justice and Peacemaking
I High Conflict: Discussion and Discovery about Best Practices, Janet Rowles, Mediation Unlimited LLC

Mail this form along with payment by April 24, 2017 or to register online visit our website at www.confictresolutonmn.org
Conflict Resolution Minnesota
P.O. Box 582674
Minneapolis, MN 55458

Registration/Cancellations
Please see the registration form for a listing of the conference fees. Your registration includes the educational sessions, materials,
breakfast, breaks and lunch.
Cancellations: Written notice of cancellation of your registration must be received by April 17, 2017. A $30 administrative fee will be
charged and the balance will be refunded following the conference. Substitutions from the same organization may be made with no
penalty. Cancellations should be emailed to Heather at contact.conflictresolutionmn@gmail.com.