Education for Conflict Resolution, Inc. (ECR) is a not-for-profit agency headquartered in North Manchester, Indiana.

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Schools and Education

• Conflict Resolution Workshop for School Personnel
• This one to two-day workshop is offered for elementary or secondary school personnel. Focusing on the practical, these participatory sessions use a wide range of new conflict resolution curriculum materials along with viewing and practicing third-party and one-to-one mediation processes. Attendance-truancy mediation, a proven positive approach to problems of tardiness and absences, can also be introduced and practiced during the workshop.
• Target Audience: School Personnel
• "Your training was both informative and an inspiration. It taught me so much and yet reminded me of how much more I need to learn and practice." "Students repeating the same or like conflict has been reduced to almost zero!" "We know of no better way to equip our students for the 21st century than to prepare them to get along with others."


• Peer Mediation
• Designed for selected elementary and secondary school students, peer mediation provides a guided process for peaceful conflict resolution. A pair of trained students or a trained student and an adult mediator conducts the mediation. Peer mediators are taught a step-by-step process that enables the disputing students to acquire new understandings, reach their own solutions, and develop a confidential written agreement
• Target Audience: Elementary and Secondary School Students, as well as College Students
• "When people ask us if we are going to fight, we tell them we have worked it out." "Now I don't have to give dirty looks or anything because we're cool." "We've seen a tremendous decrease in conflicts [at school and are] fortunate to have ECR in our community."


• Peacemaking Resources
• ECR produces a number of different training manuals and instructional materials.
• "Let's Work it Out," designed for use with grades five through high school, has been very well received by teachers and counselors, as well as by parents and churches.
• Posters/learning centers are available to enable children to visualize the problem-solving steps of conflict resolution.
• Target Audience: Students, Parents, Teachers, Counselors and After School Programs
• "The well prepared printed materials reinforce the workshop presentation and provide a good resource for use after the session."


• Attendance/Truancy Mediation and Training
• ECR provides two kinds of services aimed at improving school attendance.
  1) Truancy mediation is a meeting of the parents, the student and representatives of the school. ECR facilitates the listening and when all stories are told, the parties' involved work together to reach a solution that results in improved attendance. Often alternative restorative methods are discovered and students gain a higher level of self-worth.
  2) ECR provides a training in attendance/truancy mediation to either persons who have had previous mediation training or persons with an interest in learning mediation. A manual accompanies the training and gives all the needed forms etc. for implementation of this effective program that improves attendance rates and networking between schools and parents.
• Target Audience: Counselors, Administrators, Teachers or Agency Personnel with Previous Mediation Training
• "What improved communication and attendance most was involving the caseworkers at Education for Conflict Resolution."
• "The mediation sessions yield valuable information."


• Peace Learning Program
• ECR offers facilitators trained to teach the program developed by the Peace Learning Center in Indianapolis. This full day of intensive peace education provides training in safe escape-peace moves and responses to fouls that turn attention to the problem and toward dialogue instead of escalating the disagreement towards violence.
• Target Audience: Fourth and Fifth Grade Students and Teachers
• "Would Martin Luther King be proud that I get along with black and white people and that I help different people? that I don't judge people by what color they are? that I help in my neighborhood by cleaning up the streets and alleys? if he could see me because I am a peaceful person."

Community, Business, and Social Services
• Community Mediation
• Community mediation enables neighbors, families, employees or employers to work out their differences before a conflict escalates or drags on for months.
• "I was very glad I tried and I would highly recommend mediation for others with conflict."


• Mediating Interpersonal Conflict
• Mediating Interpersonal Conflict is a 32-hour mediation-training course for future mediators. This mediation course is an intensive, participatory and enjoyable introduction to the mediation process, conflict theory, communication, power imbalance and coping with the unexpected. Role-plays provide hands-on experience.
• "The listening and communication skills I learned in this course have made me a better person. I'm a more competent boss to my staff, a kinder father to my children, and a more supportive husband to my wife."


• Nurturing Families Program
• This parenting program, with options to include the children/youth in their own sessions, supports the growth and development of parents and children as caring people who treat themselves and others with respect and dignity. The course was also developed for the prevention and treatment of child abuse and neglect.


• Thinking for a Change - A Course for Work Release and Jail Inmates


• This integrated cognitive behavior program allows each participant to gradually understand his or her own thinking and reactions. Critical social skills and problem solving techniques are presented which support the cognitive restructuring process.


• Working with Styles
• Training based on the Friendly Style Profile by Gilmore-Fraleigh, is a guide through calm and storm for people at work. Attendees will learn their own style profile and also how to communicate and resolve conflict with co-workers and others of differing styles. Learn to resolve conflict before it leads to resignation or retaliation.
• "It was so helpful to not only learn my own style, but to learn how to communicate with another style, especially in conflict situations."