Building Conflict Competence in People and Organisations
Conexus Conflict Consultancy can help you and your organisation to harness the energies and opportunities that conflict brings in order to develop more fulfilled and successful people, relationships and organisations.
We work directly with individuals, teams and organisations to build their conflict competence. Conflict competence is the ability to engage with conflict in a constructive way in order to identify and attend to the needs of all parties and so co-create outcomes that both repair the harm caused and restore relationships between people.
Conflict competence functions at three levels:
personal: individuals develop a better understanding of their own relationship with conflict and learn ways to think about and engage with conflicts more constructively
relational: people learn ways to deal constructively with the conflicts that arise between them to build relationships of trust and care
organisational: organisations learn ways to engage constructively with conflict to address immediate difficulties and at the same time build a culture where harmful conflict is less likely to arise
Implementation
We have developed a model of conflict competence-building that has been successfully adapted for schools, colleges, universities, children and young people’s services, youth offending services, probation services and prisons across the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, Colombia and Spain.
Across these different contexts the work typically involves training, coaching, strategic consultation, systems audit and review, and quality assurance. Our engagement with you can be individual training sessions supplemented with a follow-up action planning visit, or ongoing support comprising initial training with termly top-up training, coaching and review visits. The package of implementation is bespoke to each organisation.
Evaluation
Evaluation is a key strength of Conexus. Through our research and practice, we have developed a simple, useful and meaningful method of integrated evaluation and implementation. This method not only makes the evaluation process less onerous, but also creates an implementation process that is more sharply focused on achieving the needs of your organisation.
Training
1-day introductory restorative training
3-day conference facilitation training
Half-day and whole-day refresher training
Half-day and whole-day restorative leadership training
1-day advanced skills training
Train the Trainer programme
Strategic Consultation, Implementation and Evaluation
We have worked with leaders and practitioners in individual organisations such as schools, care homes and prisons, and more broadly with local authorities to provide strategic and operational support and challenge in the development, implementation and evaluation of their restorative strategy.
This consultation, implementation and evaluation work typically comprises some of the following elements:
Development and review of systems, protocols, resources,
Development and delivery of conflict competency programmes
Co-creation and facilitation of practice support networks
Leadership coaching
Restorative case supervision
Research and development of good practice guidelines and protocols
Identification of outcome indicators, and creation of measures to assess progress against those indicators
Identification of quality indicators, and creation of mechanisms to assess practice against those indicators
Development of evaluation frameworks, schedules and instruments
Delivery of evaluation schedules: data gathering, analysis and report writing
Examples of Current & Past Projects
Strategic consultation, staff training and whole school behaviour systems review with primary, secondary schools and academies around the UK
Joint planning and delivery of 2-year county-wide restorative practice implementation and evaluation with Leicester City and Leicestershire County Councils
Evaluation of a London Borough of Camden community Family Group Conference pilot
Train the Trainer programme developed and delivered with London Borough of Hackney Children and Young People's Services, Leicester City and Leicestershire County Councils, and with Gloucestershire County Council
Training and development in restorative approaches and conflict transformation to Cambridgeshire County Council's hub of multi-agency professionals working with young people in or on the edge of local authority care
Strategic consultation, staff training, staff coaching, staff wellbeing circles, pupil training and systems review with dozens of primary, secondary and special schools and colleges across the UK
Development, delivery and quality assurance of school peer mediation scheme
Conflict coaching with senior leaders to enable them to deal more constructively with staff and school conflict in their leadership role
Strategic and operational support with a Young Offenders’ Institution in England to create an innovative Conflict Resolution Service: staff training, system development, quality assurance, sustainability and innovation
Strategic consultation, staff training and development of a scheme of work on Conflict Competence for Key Stage 4 students at a Pupil Referral Unit in London
Redesigning the behaviour management system of a large Further Education College in London: staff training and coaching, system development and review, quality assurance and control
Training groups of trainee head teachers in Berlin schools to implement Restorative Approaches within their settings
Training groups of Further Education teachers from The Dutch Alliance to implement Restorative Approaches within their settings
