Cooperative Extension: Professional Development

Would you like to deal with conflict more skillfully? Be sensitive to others without giving up your own needs? Deepen intimacy and have more ease within relationships?

The goal of this professional development training is to explore a way of thinking, acting and speaking that builds connection even during times of stress and conflict. The practical approach of Nonviolent Communication (NVC) assists us in thinking toward sustainable authentic community where everyone matters. Participants will learn and explore new skills for using conflict as an opportunity to strengthen connection to others.

This interactive workshop will provide direct experience of empathic listening and empathic problem-solving. We have direct experiences of caring deeply for our authentic self at the same time as caring for the authentic other. These skills have the potential to increase harmony and cooperation within our families, workplace and the larger community.

You will leave this workshop with practical concepts and skills you can put to immediate use.

NOTE: Due to physical/social distancing, this program was designed to be virtual and is being offered online via Zoom. This ten-hour training is presented over four days to accommodate the online platform (and self-care).

PROGRAM BENEFITS

This dynamic interactive workshop teaches ways to bring our innate empathic capacities to the experiences of daily life with fun and connection. Using 32+ years of teaching experience, Peggy Smith creates a learning environment that fosters safety, depth and fun.                       

• Gain concrete skills to improve your relationship with your self, family, coworkers and community
• Embrace empathetic presence to transform your usual ways of thinking, opening opportunities for radiant connections
• Learn and practice components of thinking and communicating as developed through Nonviolent Communication
• Discover how to use daily conflict to relate to others (and your self) with authenticity, compassion and respect

TOPICS COVERED

• Nonviolent Communication (NVC) and how to bring it to life with compassion and authenticity
  • Making an OBSERVATION – identifying what happened without judgment or interpretation
  • Connecting to the FEELINGS that arise
  • Discovering what human NEEDS are generating those feelings
  • Making a REQUEST, asking for what may make life more wonderful in a way that we experience choice and connection
• Introduction to Interpersonal Neurobiology (IPNB) and its relevance to reactivity and self-regulation
• Empathy/Warm Accompaniment along with Resonant Language – what the right hemisphere craves for regulation
• Practical skills for self-regulation
• Ways to humanize others, even when you disagree with them

WHO SHOULD ENROLL

This program is recommended for those interested in exploring and improving their relationships with themselves, their families, coworkers or community.

Social workers, counselors, therapists and teachers can find this work enriches both their professional offerings and personal well-being. Parents, guardians, and caregivers will benefit from doable strategies for self-care and concrete ways of communicating compassionately and authentically with children (and partners).

INSTRUCTOR

Peggy Smith holds a master’s degree in literacy and language arts from the University of Pennsylvania, and is a certified trainer with the International Center for Nonviolent Communication with over four decades of teaching experience. A co-founder of the Maine NVC Network, Smith is at the forefront of bringing empathic thinking and communicating to midcoast Maine. Since 1991, Smith has studied with Zen teacher and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh and is a dharma teacher within his tradition. Smith lives in Lincolnville, Maine and greets the day watching the sunrise over Islesboro. To learn more about Peggy Smith, visit www.opencommunication.org.

PROGRAM DATES AND TIMES

July 13-16, from 9-11:30 a.m.

PROGRAM FEE

$150

LOCATION

Zoom (link provided after registration)

CLASS SIZE

20

CONTINUING EDUCATION CREDITS

1.0 CEU/10 contact hours

Certificate for completing the entirety of this 10-hour course

HOW TO REGISTER

Register online. For more information or to request an accommodation contact Michelle Patten, Conference and Professional Development Coordinator, um.fhc.pd@maine.edu; 207.338.8002.