CRE Organizational Profile

CADRE

Type of Organization: Non-governmental - Non-Profit

Home Country: United States United States icon

Overview

CADRE serves as the National Center on Dispute Resolution in Special Education. CADRE works to increase the nation’s capacity to effectively resolve special education disputes, reducing the use of expensive adversarial processes. Our major emphasis is on encouraging the use of mediation and other collaborative processes as strategies for resolving disagreements between parents and schools about children’s educational programs and support services. CADRE supports parents, educators, administrators, attorneys and advocates to benefit from the full continuum of dispute resolution options that can prevent and resolve conflict and ultimately lead to informed partnerships that focus on results for children and youth. We strongly believe families, educators, students and their educational programs benefit when adversarial encounters are avoided and differences are resolved through positive communication and collaboration. We are an OSEP-funded project and part of its national technical assistance and dissemination network.

Noteable Resources

CADRE provides a variety of services including an resource-intensive website, training, data analysis, systems improvement, and resource development among our array of technical assistance activities. Some items of special note include the following, available from the Training Resources page:

Collaborative Problem Solving and Dispute Resolution in Special Education: A Training Manual
This manual is designed as an educational tool for understanding and resolving conflict. It offers state-of-the-art thinking in dispute resolution applied to special education situations. Written in an easy-to-understand, illustrated and jargon-free format, it is designed both for stand-alone reading and to be used as part of workshop groups.

Guidelines For Conflict Management in Special Education-A Manual From Portland (Oregon) Public Schools
These conflict management guidelines are designed to help district staff and parents effectively address conflict in special education. The creation of this document was part of a Portland Public Schools Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) local capacity grant funded by the Oregon Department of Education (ODE).

Listening
This video introduces the critical skill of listening and helps viewers recognize its importance and value. Viewers will better understand the skills involved in effective listening and its role in communication and problem solving.

Understanding “Positions” and “Interests”
Differentiating between “positions” and “interests” is an essential component of collaborative problem solving. This short video from CADRE introduces the differences between positions and interests and provides specific examples.

Using Participant Feedback to Evaluate and Improve Quality in Mediation
This resource guide presents an overview of mediation evaluation with a specific focus on how to make use of participant questionnaires in evaluating mediation programs. A CADRE Publication. This document was published in December 2002.