United States 
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Summary of CRE Activities
A great deal of activity is occurring in the United States. This includes work in many individual schools, as well as statewide efforts that coordinate Conflict Resolution Education work across States or within districts.
CRE Resources:
The full-text document catalog hosted by this site is a good place to start when seeking CRE resources.
See http://www.creducation.org/catalog/
For a summary of Social Emotional Learning work going on in the United States see this 2008 report written by Linda Lantieri for the Marcelino Botin Foundation.
Active CRE Organization:
ABA Section on Dispute Resolution
The American Bar Association’s Section on Dispute Resolution teamed up with some experienced conflict resolution educators (Nancy Kaplan from CRU and Kathryn Liss from HIPP) to produce a new conflict resolution skills curriculum. And thanks to funding from the JAMS foundation, the materials are available at no cost. You can preview it online here - Words Work preview.
The Words Work curriculum is geared toward youth in grades six to eight. Through ten 45-minute sessions, educators guide youth through interactive lessons that focus on relationships, problem-solving, communication, and leadership skill-building. The package includes a facilitators manual and a set of supplemental worksheets. Note that, due to the extensive use of colorful graphics, the pdf files are rather large downloads.
Active CRE Organization:
CADRE
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.
Active CRE Organization:
CRU Institute
The mission of CRU Institute is to teach young people effective, peaceful ways to resolve conflict and to develop understanding, respect, and the ability to cooperate with others in a multicultural world. CRU Institute teaches young people conflict resolution skills and encourages understanding and awareness of cultural differences. We help schools and other youth organizations establish structured mediation programs where students act as mediators for other students in dispute. Our goal is to teach young people that differences are not to be feared, but respected, and that working cooperatively to problem solve is an important life skill.
Active CRE Organization:
Conflict Management in Higher Education Resource Center
The primary objective of the Campus Conflict Resolution Resources project (Campus-adr.org) has been to significantly increase administrator, faculty, staff and student awareness of, access to, and use of conflict resolution information specifically tailored to the higher education context. The project came into being thanks to seed funds from the Conflict Resolution Information Source project followed by a major 3-year grant from the federal Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE). Examples of useful resources include searchable collections of syllabi, roleplays, and links to campus conflict resolution programs around North America.
Active CRE Organization:
Center for Dispute Resolution, University of Maryland Law School (C-DRUM)
Within the University of Maryland School of Law, the Center for Dispute Resolution (C-DRUM) works collaboratively with public and private institutions as well as individuals and groups to: promote, enhance, and teach conflict resolution skills; research and develop conflict resolution systems; and change the way conflicts are resolved throughout the state and beyond.
In collaboration with Maryland’s Mediation and Conflict Resolution Office (MACRO) and the Maryland State Department of Education, C-DRUM administers a CRE grant program that offers one-year grants, together with training and resources, to Maryland Schools K-12. More information on the schools initiative is available at http://www.cdrum.org. A full description of the Collaborative Grant Program including highlights of some of the school programs is available here.
Through a grant from the Crane Family Foundation, C-DRUM also works in Baltimore City supporting two different projects. C-DRUM supports the development of a Baltimore City restorative practices school, Baltimore Freedom Academy, working with peer mediation and the use of circle processes. C-DRUM also administers an early intervention attendance program, Baltimore Students: Mediations about Reducing Truancy (BSMART) modelled after the truancy mediation program developed by the Ohio Commission on Dispute Resolution.
Active CRE Organization:
Columbia University Teachers College Peace Education Centre
The Teachers College Peace Education Center’s (TCPEC) mission is to further the development of the field of peace education, particularly in recognition of the unprecedented need to address issues of security, war and peace, human rights and social justice, sustainable development and ecological balance. The Peace Education Center was established to provide outreach, resourcing, training and in-service education.
It accomplishing its’ mission, the Center conducts research, curricular development and outreach activities in many world regions, working in collaboration with other such centers including Miriam College, Philippines; Lebanese American University, Lebanon; Ukthal University, India; Jordan University for Science and Technology, Jordan; Seisen University, Japan; Kibbutzim College of Education, Israel; and Sabanci University in Turkey. Other working collaborations include: the University for Peace in Costa Rica, UNESCO, the United Nations, and the Global Campaign for Peace Education.
Active CRE Organization:
Conflict Resolution Education Activity Calendar
The CRE Activity Calendar is a collaborative non-profit project developed by affiliates of CREducation.org and the Association for Conflict Resolution (ACR) and the Conflict Resolution Education in Teacher Education network. The working partners on the calendar changes with each edition, but includes several key groups: CREducation.org (this website), ACR’s Education Section, ACR’s Conflict Resolution Day Committee, and the editorial team for each edition. There have been 3 annual editions of the wall calendar as of January 2012, all of which were made available at no cost or low cost to educators. Each edition covers the full school year and each month includes a full color page of instructions for learning activities and educator tips to promote conflict resolution in schools, homes and communities. The calendar’s date grid highlights significant holidays, conflict resolution events and peacemaker birthdays and includes hotlinks to additional resources in the web-enabled versions. The Association for Conflict Resolution’s main office has handled distribution of the print version and beginning with the 3rd Edition we have received generous financial support from the JAMS Foundation.
Active CRE Organization:
Council of Global Education
You may be asking yourself: “What has to be done to truly make the world a better place?” CGE believes that education is the key and that each and every one of us plays an essential role in the education process.
The goal of CGE is to create a world where values such as peace, coexistence, reverence for all forms of life, and responsibility are the norm. Needed is a new education based on new goals for a new and enlightened century. To achieve this goal, CGE has developed a global education model founded upon: Universal Values, Global Understanding, Excellence in All Things, and Service to Humanity.
Furthermore, CGE believes that every person has a stake in the education process and we therefore encourage and facilitate ongoing dialogues, seminars, and training programs in which anyone who is interested in building a better world can participate.
Active CRE Organization:
Creative Response to Conflict
Created in 1972 by the New York Quaker Project on Community Conflict, and initially known as Children’s Creative Response to Conflict, the organization developed a practical and theoretical framework for teaching nonviolence through character and social skills development, using an innovative experiential approach incorporating multiple learning modalities.
The organization was affiliated with the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), an international peace organization. In 1994 it incorporated as Creative Response to Conflict, Inc., and received 501(c)(3) status.
Besides the central office in Nyack, NY, CRC has affiliate branches throughout the United States, in Europe, and in South and Central America. CRC materials have been translated into languages including Serbian, Croatian, German, Russian, Spanish, and Welsh.
CRC designs and facilitates workshops and programs on social skills and conflict resolution for parents, young people, and those who work with young people from all racial, ethnic, class, ability, sexual orientation and language backgrounds. CRC’s organizational mission is to achieve a nonviolent and just world by helping people learn to resolve conflict though cooperation, communication, affirmation, bias awareness, mediation, and creative problem solving.
Active CRE Organization:
Education for Conflict Resolution
Education for Conflict Resolution, Inc. (ECR) is one of the Midwest’s leading conflict resolution and training centers, providing interpersonal and organizational consultation and mediation, as well as conflict education and communication workshops for schools, agencies, businesses, and faith and community groups.
Active CRE Organization:
Educators for Social Responsibility (ESR)
Educators for Social Responsibility is a national non-profit organization founded in 1982. ESR works directly with educators to implement systemic practices that create safe, caring, and equitable schools so that all young people succeed in school and life, and help shape a safe, democratic, and just world.
Our work spans the fields of social and emotional learning, character education, conflict resolution, diversity education, civic engagement, prevention programming, youth development, and secondary school improvement. We offer comprehensive programs, staff development, consultation, and resources for adults who teach children and young people preschool through high school, in settings including K-12 schools, early childhood centers and afterschool programs.
Active CRE Organization:
Global Issues Resource Center
The Global Issues Resource Center in the Office of Community Continuing Education at Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland, Ohio fosters citizen responsibility through cultivation of a global perspective on critical issues affecting our planet and its people. The Center’s special focus is on sources and management of conflict; the ongoing threats to global security; environmental dilemmas; and issues of diversity and multicultural understanding.
The Center is proud that its initiatives have served over 50,000 educators, students, community leaders and ordinary citizens locally, regionally and nationally since 1986. The Center, located at Cuyahoga Community Colleges Eastern Campus in Cleveland, Ohio, serves through three approaches:
Presenting creative educational programming and custom designed skills training.
Offering unique information resources through its award winning library collections. These multimedia materials infuse evolving contemporary issues into any discipline or agenda.
Serving as a catalyst to forge collaborations and partnerships in effective educational outreach to broad constituencies.
Educational Services
custom-designed skills training workshops for diverse educators;
lectures informing the general public about evolving contemporary issues;
seminars featuring experts in active learning;
interactive programs to serve community and agency needs;
dissemination of unique resources nationwide. (The Center’s collections are online through the Cleveland Public Library electronic catalogue and accessed via the Internet.)
Active CRE Organization:
Global Majority
Global Majority promotes non-violent conflict resolution education, mediation and advocacy. We believe that principled dialogue is imperative and must replace violent conflict if humankind is to thrive.
To promote a fundamentally new manner of thinking in global relations, Global Majority is developing national, regional, and global training seminars and advocacy campaigns that embody our aim to give voice to the global majority that aspires to live in peace.
Recognizing that violence is too often the preferred option for resolving conflict and that the spiral of violence continues to impact innocents, Global Majority invites all supporters to sign our global pledge that asserts:
• Peace can be achieved through the active participation of the global majority;
• Non-violent conflict resolution (NVCR) must be adopted and practiced by all;
• Constructive dialogue, negotiation, mediation, and other forms of non violent conflict resolution can replace military and armed conflict;
• Gender, racial, and ethnic equality must be respected as critical to the achievement of effective cooperation and dialogue among people and should be prioritized in education, government relations, business, and diplomacy;
• Inclusion of diverse stakeholders and interest groups in constructive dialogue is critical to the achievement of durable and non-violent alternatives to violence;
• To be human is to respect the humanity of others. Respect can be cultivated, earned, and modeled;
• Social responsibility must be practiced and promoted by all sectors of the global community including civil society, governments, businesses, labor, religious organizations, academia, the media, and the military;
• Non-violent direct action that is creative and supportive of dialogue should be supported at the local, regional, and global level among individuals, organizations, and networks;
• The practice of peace will build the path to peace.
Active CRE Organization:
Hague Appeal for Peace, Global Campaign for Peace Education
The Hague Appeal for Peace is an international network of organizations and individuals dedicated to the abolition of war and making peace a human right. The Global Campaign for Peace Education was launched at the Hague Appeal for Peace conference in May 1999. The Global Campaign for Peace Education (GCPE) seeks to develop the capacities, in teachers and learners, to face challenges of unprecedented proportion: the continued development of weapons of mass destruction, armed conflicts between states and ethnic groups, the spread of racism, gender inequality, community violence, the huge and widening gap between the rich and the poor throughout the globalized economy, massive violations of human rights and the degradation of the environment.
Active CRE Organization:
Maryland Mediation and Conflict Resolution Office (MACRO)
Under the leadership of the Honorable Robert M. Bell, Chief Judge of the Maryland Court of Appeals, Maryland’s Mediation and Conflict Resolution Office (MACRO) has a diverse, high-level Advisory Board. MACRO is a court-related agency, which serves as an alternative dispute resolution (ADR) resource for the state. MACRO supports innovative dispute resolution programs, and promotes the appropriate use of ADR in every field including education. MACRO works collaboratively with many others across the state to support efforts to advance effective conflict resolution practices in Maryland’s courts, communities, schools, state and local government agencies, criminal and juvenile justice programs and businesses.
In terms of education, MACRO, in conjunction with the Center for Dispute Resolution at the University of Maryland School of Law (C-DRUM) and the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) sponsors a school conflict resolution program. The program, initiated in 2003, awards one-year grants to schools that create conflict resolution programs. More information on the initiative is available here. A summary report on the schools initiative produced in December of 2007 provides a good overview of the important work happening in this area.
Active CRE Organization:
Mediator Mentors
Mediator Mentors is a university-public school partnership in which future teachers, counselors, social workers and school psychologists support the development of conflict resolution skills in school children. At California State University, Fresno, Dr. Pam Lane-Garon in the Kremen School of Education and Human Development directs the program with Karen DeVoogd, project Coordinator. Dr. Art Wint, coordinator of the Peace and Conflict Studies Program assists. Teachers and students in the public schools receive eight to 10 hours of communication and conflict resolution training and university students coach and mentor at lunch periods. More than 5,000 children and teachers have participated in the program.
Active CRE Organization:
Michigan Special Education Mediation Program, Dispute Resolution Education Resources Inc.
Young people with special needs depend on the collaborative efforts of parents, educators and professionals to help them succeed. The Michigan Special Education Mediation Program (MSEMP) provides mediation and facilitation services that enable all involved to do their best work. It also conducts workshops that enhance skills in collaborative problem solving.
Since 1996, the MSEMP has helped parents and educators discuss and resolve issues relating to Individualized Family Service Plans (IFSPs), Individualized Education Programs (IEPs), and most recently, resolution sessions. The program provides neutral mediators and facilitators to aid communication during difficult or complex discussions. They always leave the parents and educators to make their own decisions.
MSEMP workshops provide training in skills that improve listening, brainstorming and consensus building. Their goal is to help parents and educators develop solutions on their own in the best interest of the child.
The MSEMP helps all concerned avoid due process hearings and complaints. Mediation and facilitation save time and money and often result in solutions that better fit a child’s circumstances. And MSEMP services are free to users.
Active CRE Organization:
Minnesota Department of Education
Restorative Justice Projects are happening in Minnesota, and the whole range of restorative practices is happening in the schools: Family Group Conferencing, Restorative Group Conferencing, Circles to Repair Harm, Circles of Understanding, Victim Offender Dialogue. All of those practices are being tried to varying degrees in schools. The activity is at a relatively high level. Read more about it here.
Active CRE Organization:
Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility
MORNINGSIDE CENTER for Teaching Social Responsibility educates young people for hopeful and intelligent engagement with their world. A national leader in fostering social and emotional learning (SEL), Morningside Center reaches tens of thousands of educators and students each year through an array of programs that develop such skills as handling anger, being assertive, solving conflicts creatively and nonviolently, and dealing well with diversity. The Centers helps teachers make their classrooms more caring and productive. They support students in taking leadership to improve their communities—from the classroom to the world.
In 1999, Morningside Center created The 4Rs Program (Reading, Writing, Respect & Resolution), which integrates conflict resolution and intercultural understanding into the language arts curriculum for grades K-5. Each grade, K-5, has its own 4Rs guide, covering seven key themes: community, feelings, listening, assertiveness, problem-solving, diversity, and making a difference. After reading and analyzing a carefully chosen children’s book, children learn conflict resolution skills related to the theme and apply the ideas and skills they’re learning to the challenges of creating community in their classroom. In 2003, they initiated a a major federally funded evaluation of The 4Rs in collaboration with researchers from New York University and Fordham University. Preliminary findings from this 3-year controlled study are quite positive.
Active CRE Organization:
National Association for Multicultural Education (NAME)
NAME is the fastest growing professional organization in the United States that has as its sole objective the advocacy of multicultural education as the foundation philosophy of the nation’s educational system from pre-school through higher education.
The National Association for Multicultural Education is committed to a philosophy of inclusion that embraces the basic tenets of cultural pluralism. NAME celebrates cultural and ethnic diversity as a national strength that enriches a society and rejects the view that diversity threatens the fabric of a society.
NAME believes that multicultural education promotes equity for all regardless of culture, ethnicity, race, language, age, gender, sexual orientation, or exceptionality. Thus, fair and full participation in a society’s institutions is paramount as both means and end in NAME’s philosophy.
NAME believes that multicultural education enables the individual to believe in one’s own intrinsic worth and culture, to transcend monoculturalism and, ultimately, to become multicultural. This developmental process is at the center of the individual’s noble quest to define one’s relationship and responsibility to our global society.
Active CRE Organization:
Not In Our School
Across the country, students and teachers are sharing stories, joining together and taking action to create safe schools, free from stereotypes, intolerance, and hate. They’re part of a movement called Not In Our School. Not In Our School is part of Not In Our Town, a grassroots movement that uses digital media and public outreach to highlight communities working together to stop hate. For more than a decade, Not In Our School has inspired students of all ages to develop and share innovative ways to resist bullying and promote an atmosphere of acceptance and inclusion. Now NIOS has launched a special NIOS Educators Network to help connect and strengthen the many NIOS projects that are out there.
For more information about Not In Our School, including a short “What is NIOS?” video, please visit the About NIOS page at http://www.niot.org/nios/about
Active CRE Organization:
Ohio Commission on Dispute Resolution and Conflict Management
The Ohio Commission on Dispute Resolution and Conflict Management is a state govenrment agency that provides grants, training, resources and technical assistance to Ohio’s public schools, colleges, and univerisites on conflict management. They currently are working on two national pilot projects in conflict resolution education in teacher education and in the public schools. They also offer a truancy mediation program in association with the Ohio Supreme Court.
Active CRE Organization:
Peace Praxis Educational Consulting
Mission: “To contribute to the creation of safe, caring and academically successful learning communities.”
Peace Praxis provides Professional Development for educators, school leaders, and higher ed. students and staff in a wide variety of Conflict Resolution Education and Peace Education topics. For example, the Peaceful Schools Institute is a 3-day professional development experience that includes training in: Positive Discipline, Bullying Prevention/Intervention, Diversity Awareness, Conflict De-escalation, and Social and Emotional Learning.
Peace Praxis provides curriculum development in SEL, CRE, Peace Education and Prevention Education. Also offered are consulting services in Social and Emotional Learning and School Climate initiatives.
Training for Students (k-12) includes Peer Mediation, Teambuilding, and Bullying Prevention/Intervention.
Peace Praxis provides peace and justice organizations with training in Nonviolent Organizing, The MAP Model for Social Change, and Peace Education. Contact Christa M. Tinari for inquiries regarding Mediation, Dialogue and Facilitation services for schools and community organizations.
Active CRE Organization:
People's Place: Center for Community Justice
The Center for Community Justice provides Conflict Resolution Classes to youth either mandated through the courts or as part of school and community organizations groups. The class provides students with a new perspective on conflict resolution as well as providing them with alternatives to violence in conflict situations.
Active CRE Organization:
Playworks
The Playworks Mission: To improve the health and well-being of children by increasing opportunities for physical activity and safe, meaningful play.
Playworks is a national nonprofit organization that supports learning by providing safe, healthy and inclusive play and physical activity to schools at recess and throughout the entire school day.
Playworks is the only nonprofit organization in the country to send trained, full-time program coordinators, called “coaches” to low-income, urban schools, where they transform recess and play into a positive experience that helps kids and teachers get the most out of every learning opportunity throughout the school day. The coaches become part of the school community, working full-time to provide organized play and physical activity through the five components of the Playworks program. They organize games and activities during recess, provide individual class game times and run a leadership development program during school hours. They also run Playworks tutoring and physical activity programs and developmental sports leagues during after school hours.
Active CRE Organization:
School Mediation Associates
School Mediation Associates is based just outside Boston, Massachusetts in the United States. Our mission is to transform schools into safer, more caring, and more effective institutions. Through our work we:
* Encourage young people to become leaders in their schools
* Help students and educators see conflict as an opportunity for personal and institutional growth
* Teach students and educators the skills to resolve conflict non-violently and collaboratively
* Mediate challenging conflicts at educators’ requests
* Disseminate an approach to problem solving that values diversity and respects differences of opinion
* Provide educators with the knowledge, experience and the materials necessary to integrate collaborative conflict resolution processes into their professional practices, their curricula, and their personal lives.
Active CRE Organization:
School Mediation Center-- Life Trax
“Why caring, belonging and resolving conflict productively is important?”
Unresolved conflict is the #1 reason for student absenteeism
Belonging is the most single factor reducing potential for violence
Students need to feel safe before productive learning occurs
Caring is the foundation of respect
Life Trax is an organization that offers training to adults and youth utilizing practical life strategies to meet the demands and changes in an ever-changing world. Practicing productive conflict resolution is essential to maintaining balance in daily life, work and play.
Life Trax teaches simple solutions and provides training and products that increase individual and group performance that meet or exceed your goals.
Active CRE Organization:
Teachers Without Borders
Teachers Without Borders (TWB) is a non-profit, international organization with a small staff and a membership of over 6,500 in over 180 countries. TWB advances human welfare through professional development on a global scale. TWB programs are conceived by, led, and developed by local education leaders and supported by a global network of colleagues. Current programs include:
Voice of Teachers Radio Show
Voice of Teachers Journal
Emergency Education
Community Teaching and Learning Centers
Millennium Development Ambassadors
Workshops and Conferences
Certificate of Teaching Mastery
Peace Education
At over 59 million, teachers are the largest single group of trained professionals in the world. The evidence is clear: a quality education correlates with dramatic advances in human welfare. Better health. Fewer infant deaths. Cleaner water. Human rights. All children deserve the right to flourish because of great teachers.
Active CRE Organization:
Association for Conflict Resolution (ACR)
The Association for Conflict Resolution (ACR) is a professional organization enhancing the practice and public understanding of conflict resolution.
They are the nation’s largest professional association for mediators, arbitrators, educators and other conflict resolution practitioners. ACR works in a wide range of settings throughout the United States and around the world.
At ACR, you will find colleagues with similar skills and concerns,
whether you are a:
- school educator teaching peer mediation,
- government employee working with the shared neutrals program,
- custody mediator in the court system,
- environmental mediator dealing with regulatory disputes,
- arbitrator dealing with corporate non-performance,
- public policy facilitator working with interagency conflict, or
- divorce mediator working with families, or more!
Our multicultural and multidisciplinary organization offers a broad umbrella under which all forms of dispute resolution practice find a home.
The Association has an Education Section that devoted specifically to CRE work.
One of ACR’s special projects is an annual event known as Conflict Resolution Day. On the third Thursday of October each year, supporters of conflict resolution host events around the United States that build public awareness of conflict resolution concepts, skills and services. More information and tools are available at the ACR website.
