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Words Work is a curriculum of ten 45-minute lessons related to listening, problem-solving, intercultural communication, and much more. The ABA Section of Dispute Resolution worked with two curriculum partners, CRU Institute and AFSC’s HIP program, through the funding support of the JAMS Foundation to develop this curriculum.

Description:

Words Work is a simple, practical, and user-friendly supplement to after school programs serving middle-school-aged children. The Words Work curriculum teaches kids to use communication skills to prevent and manage conflict.

Words Work is a turn-key curriculum educators and advocates can use to build leadership, relationship, and communication skills. With these skills, youth will become comfortable with recognizing and effectively resolving conflict in the situations they face at school, at home, and in the community.

The Words Work curriculum is geared toward youth in grades six to eight. Through ten 45-minute sessions, educators will guide youth through interactive lessons that focus on relationships, problem-solving, communication, and leadership skill-building. Two leading conflict resolution education organizations, the Conflict Resolution Unlimited Institute and the Middle Atlantic Region of American Friends Service — Help Increase the Peace Program, provided the lessons that are the foundation of the curriculum.

Through funding by the JAMS Foundation, the curriculum is available free of charge.

Please Note: The link below will lead you to the ABA’s site, where you can add this to your cart, then create an account, then check out. This will place a copy in the “Downloads” folder of your account–then you download the large (12Mb!) pdf:

http://www.abanet.org/abastore/index.cfm?fm=Product.AddToCart&pid=5100004PDF

The manual includes the facilitators’ guidebook, all the exercises and worksheets, a certificate template, and a helpful set of short “teaching notes” to help trainers recall the main points of each lesson. Please know that we ask you to register so we can track how many visitors download the curriculum, and we may follow up with an email survey to find out your experiences with it.

This presentation reviews the importance and the purpose of facilitation along with the lessons learned following the Columbine High School shootings. It also includes an in depth look at the benefits and the administration process of facilitation.

This presentation illustrates the topic of reforming special education and fostering collaborative problem solving skills in complex D. C. school settings. Included are conflict resolution case studies and an example of an integrated curriculum for special educators.

This presentation by Mary Alice Smallbone and J. Frank Rizzo reviewed the creation of Life long Conflict Practitioners and how Peer Mediation can help. The presentation describes how to implement an effective peer mediation program and depicts a sample program, “Amigos in Mediation” (AIM) Peer Mediation Program.

An overview of the key components of the CRETE Project presented as part of a panel session entitled “No Teacher Left Behind: Reaching Out with Conflict Resolution Education in Teacher Education.”

Bill Warters’ portion of a panel presentation entitled “No Teacher Left Behind: Reaching Out with Conflict Resolution Education in Teacher Education.” As the program description indicated, “A critical support for CRETE is the web site www.creducation.org. The web designer and master will introduce the site and discuss how it helps us reach out with CRE to all teachers and educators around the globe.”

Slides from Jennifer Batton’s portion of the panel presentation entitled “No Teacher Left Behind: Reaching Out with Conflict Resolution Education in Teacher Education” which was designed to introduce participants to the Conflict Resolution Education in Teacher Education (CRETE) project, a national collaborative (funded by the JAMS Foundation and U.S. Department of Education) to build conflict resolution education knowledge in pre-service and in-service teachers.