Conflict Resolution and Mediation Graduate Certificate

Earn your mediation certificate online

This online mediation training, offered by CSU's School of Social Work, helps you develop conflict resolution skills that can benefit you in a wide variety of professional and personal situations. It can add to your credibility as a professional mediator, if that is your end goal, but it can also give you skills to better handle everyday situations accompanied by tension, stress, and confrontation.

Some of the ways this certificate can benefit your professional expertise include:

• In a teaching profession, you will be better able to respond to conflict situations involving your students, their families, and other staff.
• In a therapy or counseling position, these skills will help you better understand the root of conflict between clients, and help them work toward a resolution.
• In a managerial position, you will be better equipped to help employees resolve conflicts over such things as projects or budgets.
• And of course, as a professional mediator providing services such as those to divorcing couples, you will be able to help families work together to create a written plan for moving forward.

Your personal life may also benefit in numerous ways, including:

• As a family member, this mediation certificate can make you an effective participant in decisions made for aging loved ones.
• As a parent, you will understand how to give your children more responsibility in resolving conflicts among themselves.
• As a fellow community member, you will be able to step in during disagreements on issues like property line responsibilities, helping others better understand each other's underlying interests to reach an amicable solution.

Develop strengths-based tools

This online conflict resolution training uses an approach that teaches you how to focus on clients' strengths rather than deficits, and how those strengths can be used to move toward a resolution. The challenging, practice-based curriculum focuses on this facilitative process throughout the program.

Upon completion of the program, you will have a better understanding of:

• The formal process of mediation as a specific method of conflict resolution, including the specific steps needed to come to a formal, written resolution.
• The process of mediation as a facilitator, allowing those involved in the conflict to shape the solution, rather than assigning one as an arbitrator.
• Fundamental communication skills especially important in conflict management, such as listening, checking for accuracy in what you heard, asking open-ended questions, reflecting, and hearing wholly and empathetically.
• Key negotiation, problem-solving, and conflict resolution skills that are transferable to a variety of fields, and can help you in nearly any career.

The program curriculum provides 40 hours of foundational material recommended by many mediation organizations, including the Mediation Association of Colorado.

Become a valuable asset to any team

Due to the nature of interpersonal human relationships, the need for conflict resolution skills can arise in any situation, and this online mediation training can benefit professionals in a variety of settings, including:

• Social work
• Family therapy
• Public service
• Human resources
• Law enforcement
• Faith-based organizations
• Student affairs and higher education
• Crisis management
• Natural resources
• Victim advocacy
• Education
• Mental health
• Hospitals and healthcare
• Community development

Visit Conflict Resolution and Mediation FAQ for answers to commonly asked questions about the program and the mediation field.

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This online mediation training program allows you to earn your graduate certificate while maintaining your current work and personal schedules.

Online

Online courses are delivered using Canvas, an online learning management system. Courses are asynchronous, meaning you don't have to log in to watch lectures or participate at designated times. While the online format of this certificate offers flexibility, it still requires the same amount of work and time as campus-based graduate courses. Instruction for online courses is provided in a variety of methods that include:

• Videos of the instructor lecturing, as well as pre-recorded mediation scenarios
• Role-play scenarios via web-based video technology built into the course, during which students have the opportunity to practice the specific mediation skills being taught
• Textbook and article readings
• Other engaging activities that foster synthesis of the course materials

All online courses are sixteen weeks long, requiring regular internet access the entire time. Please note, internet access should be at a speed that accommodates live video chatting with peers.

About the Program

Are there prerequisites to taking these courses?

Yes, students enrolling in any of the mediation courses we offer must have successfully completed a bachelor's degree. If you do not meet this prerequisite, but would still like to enroll in our mediation courses, overrides may be granted on a case-by-case basis by the instructor of each course. Students must complete SOWK 551: Fundamentals of Mediation before enrolling in any of our other specialty courses, as the specialty courses will build directly on the skills learned in the foundation class.

What if I already took a basic conflict resolution or mediation class?

As a transcripted Graduate Certificate, 3 courses totaling 9 credits are required for this certificate. The certificate requires SOWK 551, with no exceptions.

Can I complete the certificate entirely online or entirely face to face?

At this time, the certificate can only be completed online.

Applying Conflict Resolution and Mediation Coursework

What are my next steps after completing my Graduate Certificate in Conflict Resolution and Mediation?

As the objective of the Conflict Resolution and Mediation Graduate Certificate is to teach students skills that can be used in a variety of settings, our program allows students the flexibility to utilize the skills learned in the ways that fit their professional goals.

Many students would like tools to better solve conflicts they find themselves needing to mitigate in their work, such as managers dealing with disputing employees or social service providers managing disagreements within client systems. Some learners may seek this training to foster healthy resolution to conflicts they find themselves in. Yet other students are interested in providing formal conflict resolution to people in the process of a divorce.

Regardless of how one might like to apply this training, the skills learned in these courses are applicable to countless professional and personal settings, and employers appreciate seeing conflict resolution training as part of anyone's background.

After completing the Fundamentals of Mediation class, can I be a mediator?

The State of Colorado does not regulate who can offer mediation services, and utilizing conflict resolution tools does not require membership in any professional association, but some students may wish to pursue association membership as a professional goal. Students who wish to pursue recognition by an association as a professional mediator are responsible for gaining practice experience required by the association. Please be aware that some states do regulate mediators, so please see the last link under professional organizations if you wish to practice mediation in a state other than Colorado.

Our foundation coursework, provided via SOWK 551: Fundamentals of Mediation, satisfies the industry standard of 40 hours of classroom time, which is one of the requirements usually set by professional conflict resolution associations, in addition to practice hours and professional development. For more information about membership of a professional conflict resolution association, please visit the web pages listed below.

Professional Organizations

Association for Conflict Resolution
International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution
Mediation Association of Colorado
Mediators Beyond Borders
National Association for Community Mediation
State-by-state mediator regulation and professional association membership

Take mediation courses online

Curriculum

This online conflict resolution certificate requires nine credits and consists of two phases of courses. Phase I includes the Fundamentals of Mediation course, which provides 40 hours of foundation material recommended by many mediation organizations including the Mediation Association of Colorado. Phase II includes advanced skills courses.

You must be admitted to this program for the certificate to appear on your official University transcript.

Phase I - Required course:

• SOWK 551 – Fundamentals of Mediation (3 cr., spring, summer, fall)

Phase II - Select two of the following courses:

• SOWK 552 – Conflict Management: Health and Elder Care (3 cr., spring in odd years)
• SOWK 553 – Multi‐Party Conflict Resolution (3 cr., fall in even years)
• SOWK 554 – Conflict Resolution in the Workplace (3 cr., fall in odd years)
• SOWK 556 – Divorce and Family Mediation (3 cr. spring in even years)

Courses in this certificate may be common with those in other graduate certificates. A student may earn more than one certificate, but a given course may be counted toward only one certificate. You may take up to two courses before formally applying to the program.

Application Deadlines

Students can begin the program in the fall, spring, or summer semesters. Applications are reviewed as they are received.

Note: Applications submitted after the deadline may be accepted on a case-by-case basis.