Conflict is human and necessary for growth.
Training
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Mediation
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Dialogue Facilitation
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Consulting
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Public Programs
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Training • Mediation • Dialogue Facilitation • Consulting • Public Programs •
TRAINING
Honoring + bridging differences
Dynamic communication skills
Guided somatic awareness
Deepening self-reflection
Transforming conflict
MEDIATION
Assured confidentiality
Equal participation by all
Responsive to each party
Transformative process
Goal of mutual agreement
DIALOGUE FACILITATION
Guiding key dialogue issues
Ensuring equal participation
Practicing dynamic engagement
Supporting personal sharing
Clarifying options and actions
CONSULTING
Conflict assessment
Adaptive process design
Dialogue facilitation
Equity building
Strategic action planning
PUBLIC PROGRAMS
Engage community concerns
Explore collaborative process
Build social emotional intelligence
Envision sustainable actions
Grow leadership capacity
Tools of Engagement®
PeoplesLab services are grounded in Tools of Engagement®, a unique set of multifaceted methods developed by PeoplesLab founder Dorit Cypis, informed by her decades of experience working in art, education, mediation and social justice.
Tools of Engagement® are designed to support people to meet conflict more effectively through practical, strategic and sensorial approaches that build our capacity for self-knowledge, expand our bias awareness, and enhance our communication and negotiation skills.
Tools of Engagement® are core and adaptable across all PeoplesLab services.
Who can we be to one another?
Our Services
PeoplesLab processes reach across our differences, to repair loss of trust, awaken our potential for creative synergy, and inspire a spirit of mutual belonging.
Testimonials
PeoplesLab training is designed to build our capacity to develop transformational social change which can be sustainable when also focusing on personal and interpersonal change. Our training offers an interactive approach building practical skills that effectively engage conflict. Training may be part of consulting service adapted to the unique needs of the group.
PeoplesLab training is grounded in Tools of Engagement® including perceptual, somatic/body focused reflection, communication and negotiation tools that help us to elaborate on the nuances of identity and illuminate how we may be caught in habitual belief and reaction.
Training
In person + via zoom
Social intelligence
Recognize:
Diverse cultural and personal contexts of identity
Available resources to achieve equity
Differences within people and between people
Emotional Intelligence
Develop:
Embodied somatic awareness of your direct experience
Psychological, social and environmental sensitivity
Empathy for yourself and for others
Generative Actions
Transform:
Habitual reactive habits to responsive behavior
Conflict situations into creative and practical outcomes
Imbalanced exchanges to meet others with reciprocity
Conflict Clinic® Training Program
A unique program designed for educators, facilitators, mediators, civic leaders, artists and cultural producers
PeoplesLab Conflict Clinic training offers 4 modules that build on and extend each other. Modules can be repeated. Modules 1 + 2 are recommended to be taken together.
2 Conflict Clinic Training certifications are offered:
Practicum Certification
• completion of Basics, Application, Building
Teaching Certification
• completion of Training
MODULE 1: CONFLICT CLINIC BASICS
3 sessions (weekly) - Offered 3 times annually
Learn core communication principles and Tools of Engagement® integrating somatic, reflexive and procedural processes exploring identity, difference, conflict and possibility.
Outcomes:
Psycho-social skills (bias awareness & self-knowledge)
Reflexive-somatic & dynamic listening skills
Conflict engagement skills to recognize & appreciate differences
MODULE 2: CONFLICT CLINIC APPLICATIONS
6 sessions (weekly) - Offered 3 times annually
Apply core communication principles and Tools of Engagement® to address your direct experience of conflict and generate new approaches to personal and interpersonal conflict.
Outcomes:
Apply skills to assess current conflict situations
Generate collaborative group dynamics
Develop transparency, reciprocity, equity, and empathy
MODULE 3: CONFLICT CLINIC BUILDING
6 sessions (monthly), individual coaching, 1 group retreat – Offered annually
Extend your personal and interpersonal skills to build transformative social programs that address systemic issues
Outcomes:
Collaborative vision planning
Strategic program development
Implementing programs for social justice
MODULE 4: CONFLICT CLINIC TRAINING
3 months - 2 group retreats, individual coaching, training supervision - Offered annually
Develop a capacity to teach Conflict Clinic communication principles and conflict engagement skills
Outcomes:
Teach application of PeoplesLab Tools of Engagement
Learner-centered pedagogy
Catalyze sustainable social justice change
Mediation
When conflict becomes chronic, the aspirations and inspirations of those involved are reduced, impacting everyone including stakeholders outside the conflict situation.
PeoplesLab offers Transformative Mediation, a process that addresses conflict as living within and between people, building engagement pathways leading beyond resolution towards transformative change.
Transformative Mediation integrates psycho-social strategies that are sensitive and responsive to each party’s unique needs, building the capacity to create sustainable change. Participating parties are guided through a confidential, non-prescriptive process that ensures equal participation in communication, exploration, and negotiation to craft a mutually satisfactory agreement.
Transformative Mediation measures its success by a qualitative personal and interpersonal shift in awareness, enhanced sense of well being, and level of engagement between all parties resulting in a mutual agreement.
The Mediation Process:
The mediator acknowledges the respective positions of each party with neutrality, guiding a process of mutual recognition that transforms the interests at stake.
Adapted to the specifics of each conflict situation, the process proceeds sequentially as we collaboratively develop goals and timelines, repeating steps as needed from initial convening to final agreement.
Key Elements:
Confidential
Collaborative
Responsive
Adaptive
Equitable
Transformative
Consulting
Conflict Assessment
Every conflict situation is unique. To understand the circumstances of conflict within a group, a critical initial step is convening an assessment. Individual stakeholders are interviewed to recognize the group’s authority structure, differing identities, perspectives, roles, responsibilities, and expectations, as well as aspirations in relation to actual capacities, challenges and available resources.
Adaptive Process Design
After initial assessment, a process is designed to address and transform the current conditions, and may include communication training, mediation, and facilitated dialogue.
Strategic Action Planning
With renewed trust through the development of generative communication skills, group members have an expanded capacity to work collaboratively to envision strategic actions and implement actionable change.
PeoplesLab offers consulting services for individuals and groups to develop their collaborative vision and the actionable steps necessary to make their vision a reality. By implementing principles of generative communication, we build trust, honor all identities and build bridges across our differences.
Dialogue Facilitation
PeoplesLab offers Dialogue Facilitation for community, civic, cultural, and business groups experiencing conflict among its members. Conflict within groups that is experienced as personal and interpersonal often may be fueled by systemic cultural and institutional structures.
Dialogue Facilitation creates space for cultural and individual differences, models responsive communication and dynamic listening, expands understanding between people, fosters empathy between members, and initiates practical action steps to shift the conditions underlying conflict.
Since 2014, Dorit Cypis has designed and facilitated engaged community conversations for Days of Dialogue which was created by Avis and Mark Ridley Thomas in 1995 to meet community need in South and Central Los Angeles. To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Watts uprising and in the wake of protests over racial violence by police in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2015 Days of Dialogue developed The Future of Policing, bringing many hundreds of community members and police officers into dialogue circles across Los Angeles County.
Public Programs
PeoplesLab founder Dorit Cypis has developed a variety of public programs in areas of arts and culture, youth development, and conflict mediation, including:
North East Youth Council (Founder/Director)
Los Angeles, California, 2014-18
Guided programs to build civic leadership skills among vulnerable urban youth, supporting them to envision and lead initiatives that enhance their communities, and develop constructive relations with local law enforcement police.
Mediators Beyond Borders International (Co-Founder)
International, 2007
Developed trainings to build community capacity for engaging chronic conflict between and within local cultural groups. Cypis directed the Israel Initiative in collaboration with Neve Shalom Wahat-al-Salaam, a Jewish/Palestinian bi-cultural village in Israel committed to mediation towards a generative peace.
Kulture Klub Collaborative (Founder/Director)
Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1992-98
Guided collaboration between artists and social service providers to develop arts programming that inspired unhoused youth in creative expression and engaged citizenship while managing daily survival.
Foundation for Art Resources (Co-Founder/Director)
Los Angeles, California, 1979-82
Developed partnerships between artists and private/public community centers to produce cultural events in public spaces across Los Angeles.
PeoplesLab continues its collaborations with individuals and groups to develop public programs that will develop people’s capacity for creative social justice leadership.
