For teachers, school administration, daycare service staff & support staff

Would you like to inspire cooperation and learn alternatives to punishment and rewards?
Would you like to prevent, reduce and resolve conflicts peacefully?
Would you like to end power struggles with your students?
Would you like to co-create a life-enriching learning community with your students?

Through games and role-plays and by using real situations from our everyday lives as teachers, see how it is possible to live our relationships with our students and colleagues in harmony with our values.
*Resolve conflicts in a way that is satisfying to all involved
*Find effective and creative solutions to challenges, big and small
*Listen to and better take care of ourselves
*Express ourselves authentically as we listen to others with compassion
*Deepen our empathic listening skills helping us to effectively diffuse conflictual situations and allowing students to really be heard
*Transform judgements, demands and punishments into opportunities for deep connection where we listen and express ourselves from our hearts



In her workshops, Melanie Whitham shares with participants her deep respect for children, her compassion for teachers who want so much to bring more harmony to their relationship with their students, as well as her passion and gratitude for NonViolent Communication (NVC)© developed by Marshall Rosenberg.

Workshops are tailored to meet the needs of your school team and can include follow-up support in integrating the principles of NVC into classrooms as well as into the culture of the school.


Click here for stories about school workshops

Basic skills training for staff
14 hours of training plus one 2-hour follow-up where we learn about the No-Fault Zone, a conflict resolution tool. We use: games, exercises and role plays based on your daily school situations.

Practice group for staff
After the basic skills has been completed, every 2 weeks or once a month for a pre-determined amount of time. The questions and needs of the group are used to plan each practice.

Individual or small group coaching
To help you plan how to integrate more fully the notions of NVC into your school or your classroom.Can be done individually or in small groups. Can also be done through direct modelling in the classroom.

Activities and training for the classroom
Classroom sessions (variable number of sessions possible), accompanied by individual sessions with the teacher depending on his or her objectives. Includes No-Blame Game training, a game adapted from the No-Fault Zone.(see useful links)

Young mediators training
10 sessions of one hour each, followed by 3 monthly practice sessions. Max. 15 participants. For children 6 years or older.

Empathic presence and\or mediation
For staff, parents and students, upon request or on a regular basis.

“NonViolent Communication is, in my opinion, a tool that is as essential to learning as the pencil we put in the child’s hand so he can learn to write. Essential if we want our youth to develop their social abilities and our world to be a better place to live.”
Principal, Sutton School

“I now have a deeper connection with co-workers and a better understanding of how we each see things differently. I’m leaving feeling positive and grateful for the experience.”
Teacher, Sutton School

My challenging class is my seventh grade, particularly one student. My biggest question is what is it that he/they need. I went into work on Monday and was able to interact with him and the rest of his classmates from a place of calm and a place of caring. I used observation, feelings, needs, and requests. The class responded in an amazingly cooperative way. Today one of the students in the class came to me after school and asked me if I would listen to a poem that he had written. I was surprised but agreed. He sat down and read me a three page rap that he had written to me telling me about who he was. It was heart wrenching to hear, but his message was loud and clear: "Don't judge me for the way I look or how I act sometime. There is so much going on inside of me that no one can see or know." I was almost speechless when he finished. What he said was so HUGE. I went for the feeling, "I feel honored that you shared this with me." From there we talked some. I'm quite worried about him, but at least a door has been opened. I feel that my compassionate way of communicating with his class in the past two days opened that door. I'm humbled by this experience.
Theresa

I’ve been using some of the empathetic response strategies I was reading a little about (e.g., "I'm guessing that you're feeling pretty upset right now" ... "Would you like to find a time when we could talk about what happened, later?"), rather than my traditional directives (e.g., "I need you to begin working on the assignment in the next few minutes, or I'll have you work on it with me during recess"). I'm happy to report that, on several occasions, that simple strategy of reflecting back in words what I'm seeing/interpreting from a child's body language seems to free her up to move on, out of a stuck place, and to be able to talk, or simply to re-engage in the class activity. Aha!
Dell

Another interesting effect of practicing this is it slows my reaction/response time down because I'm working to figure out exactly what I'm feeling, what need isn't being met, and what my request it. That makes me less likely to respond impulsively out of some angry emotional place. Great, huh?
Revell