Participant & Stakeholder Training
Stakeholder training is aimed at equipping stakeholders - parents, educators, service providers, advocates and others - with skills that enhance their capacity to communicate, negotiate and prevent conflict from escalating. A wide variety of topics may be included in the training curriculum and the learning setting can vary from short workshops provided to small groups, to all-day courses provided at state-wide conferences.
The Office for Dispute Resolution has provided conflict resolution training since 2002. More recently, in 2008, ODR joined a national effort led by CADRE and the IDEA Partnership to build capacity for early dispute resolution by implementing “Creating Agreement in Special Education: Conflict Resolution Training for Parents and Educators”. ODR has been the lead state in the nation for its investment in delivering Creating Agreement training to school and family communities across the commonwealth, and has trained in excess of 2,000 participants.
The Connecticut School-Family-Community Partnerships Project helps educators, parents and community members develop partnerships by providing training, topical workshops, a newsletter, and a collection of books, videos and other resources.
A variety of trainings and coaching activities for parents, mentors, advocates and educators have been developed and offered over the past ten years. The training topic areas include communication, conflict resolution, problem-solving, dealing with difficult dynamics, effective IEP meeting strategies, and how to facilitate IEP meetings.