Course Description

New Ways for Families® is a method of teaching and reinforcing four simple conflict resolution skills, The 4 Big Skills for parents and children. For families going through a separation or divorce, the skills focus on helping co-parents—even high conflict co-parents—work together in making decisions and managing their lives as much as realistically possible. The goals are to help them stay out of court, to help them save money by making their own joint decisions and reducing their conflicts, and to protect their children as their families re-organize in new ways.

The 4 Big Skills™

New Ways for Families™ is designed to help even the most difficult parents, so it is taught in several different formats, from Pre-Mediation Coaching, up to the full counseling model of six individual parent counseling sessions and three parent-child counseling sessions for each parent. The Decisions Skills Class is designed to be a group learning activity taught in three 60 or 90 minute class sessions, either as a free-standing class, or as part of a longer parenting class. The parents who need stronger skills can be referred to use a more intensive model of New Ways for Families® (such as the full Counseling Model of individual and parent-child counseling sessions) after taking this Decision Skills Class.

Parents can be court-ordered into the class or participate voluntarily. The class be can be taught as three class sessions (60-90 minutes each) or can be incorporated into any existing parenting class curriculum. The class sessions are structured using the Decision Skills Workbook. Parents are expected to work through the workbook during class with the assistance of the instructor.

This is a shorter version of the 12-week New Ways for Families Counseling Model, but the focus remains on learning and practicing the 4 Big Skills. It is not intended to replace parenting classes that focus on other aspects of the parent-child relationship during divorce.

There are four specific purposes for this Decisions Skills Class:

1. to communicate with BIFF Responses (moderate behaviors)
2. to calm oneself with encouraging statements (managed emotions)
3. to learn to make and respond to proposals (flexible thinking)
4. to learn to check oneself (to remember to use these skills)

Whether you are a lawyer, counselor, manager or other professional, you are likely to be involved in mediation. Legal professionals are required to have their clients participate in mediation before going to court in many kinds of disputes, yet mediation isn’t perfect and some disputes unfortunately remain unresolved, despite the mediator’s and others’ best efforts. Studies show that 60-80% of disputes are resolved in mediation, depending on the type of dispute, so it still has a great track record and is the preferred approach in most situations—but perhaps we can do even better.

Once you’re trained in this method and start using it with clients, they can start using them right away in making decisions together out of court.

For

• parent educators
• lawyers
• mediators
• divorce coaches

Outline

• 90-minute training
• PowerPoint
• PDF Certificate of Completion

Required Materials

These books are required for the training course. Please order them here:

• Decision Skills Instructor's Manual
• Decisions Skills Workbook

Instructor

Bill Eddy, LCSW, Esq. is the co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer of the High Conflict Institute in San Diego, California. He pioneered the High Conflict Personality Theory (HCP) and has become an expert on managing disputes involving people with high conflict personalities. He was the Senior Family Mediator at the National Conflict Resolution Center for 15 years, a Certified Family Law Specialist lawyer representing clients in family court for 15 years, and a licensed clinical social worker therapist with twelve years’ experience.

He serves on the faculty of the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution at the Pepperdine University School of Law in California and is a Conjoint Associate Professor with the University of Newcastle Law School in Australia.

He has been a speaker and trainer in over 30 U.S. states and 10 countries and is the author or co-author of over 20 books, manuals, and workbooks. He is co-host of the podcast It's All Your Fault which he co-hosts with Megan Hunter, and he also has a popular blog on the Psychology Today website with millions of views.

Continuing Education Credits