Conflict Resolution Facilitator Training Certificate

Conflict is inevitable. The way we meet it can be transformative.

Body-centered practice. Trauma awareness. Anti-oppression.

Conflict is inevitable — but the way we meet it can be transformative. This 25-hour certificate program, led by Kai Cheng Thom and grounded in her Loving Justice model, is a deep dive into the frameworks, embodiment practices, and conversational skills needed for trauma-informed, anti-oppressive conflict transformation. Learn to regulate your nervous system, depolarize groups, and embody your values in even the most charged conversations.
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Conflict Resolution Facilitator Training Certificate

Program at a Glance

Are you a facilitator, relationship therapist, coach, or group worker who wants more than communication frameworks — who wants to understand why conflict escalates, what's happening in the nervous system, and how to work with it at the intrapersonal, interpersonal, and group level? Then this facilitator training is for you. 

Traditional conflict resolution often ignores the most important element in the room: the nervous system. Led by Qualified Mediator and somatic coach Kai Cheng Thom, MSc, this 25-hour certificate program equips you with the practical embodiment skills needed for trauma-informed conflict management.

NEW! 2 New Modules

  1. Psychological Safety and Embodied Conflict Transformation
  2. Shadow Work for Embodied Conflict Transformation Parts 1 & 2

NEW! Live Q&A Dates with Kai Cheng Thom — Reserved for those enrolled in this program. Extend your learning, ask questions, clarify content, be a part of healthy conversation!

Dates:

  • June 11
  • July 2
  • August 13
Meet Your Lead Faculty

Learn from World-Leading Voices in Trauma Treatment

Internationally recognized leaders bring to life a holistic and unified curriculum.

Kai Cheng Thom

Kai Cheng Thom

About the Program

Why this program, why now

The Core Curriculum: You will learn to navigate the intrapersonal, interpersonal, and social levels of conflict by focusing heavily on the body and the nervous system through the somatic RFT model. 

  • Regulate: Master self-soothing and distress tolerance when triggered.
  • Resolve: Learn the difference between collaborative and competitive conflict resolution.
  • Facilitate: Gain practical techniques for group depolarization and perspective-taking.
  • Transform: Apply trauma-informed, anti-oppressive structures to real-world community and organizational settings.

What You’ll Walk Away With:

Nervous System Mastery: Concrete skills to self-soothe and stay anchored during high-stress interactions.

  • The Loving Justice Toolkit: Micro and meta-skills to navigate complex interpersonal conflict.
  • Group Depolarization: Proven techniques to de-escalate tension and foster collaborative resolutions.
  • Embodied Transformation: A working understanding of how trauma and conflict live in the body—and how to release them through conflict resolution.

A Note on the Space We’re Building: This is advanced, deep-dive training. We will explore conflict through an anti-oppressive lens, touching on restorative frameworks. Because conflict resolution requires navigating highly charged emotional content and differing ideologies, a high tolerance for distress and disagreement is important. A non-triggering space cannot be guaranteed.

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Curriculum

Curriculum

01 Building the Loving Justice Container
Kai Cheng opens the program by building the learning container through the LOVE framework, introducing the SALVE embodiment practice as the Loving Justice core somatic tool, and naming the three meta skills — compassionate curiosity, equanimity, and integrity — that ground all the work to come. She also distinguishes incident-based from issue-based conflict to orient how participants will assess what they are working with.

- The LOVE container agreements (Let each choose, Openness to multiple truths, Value imperfection, Equity/justice)
- The "I'm afraid of conflict because…" somatic noticing practice
- The SALVE practice — the Loving Justice Embodiment Practice (Sensation, Affect, Language, Validation, Expanded awareness)
- Three meta skills of Loving Justice: Compassionate Curiosity, Equanimity, Integrity
- Why conflict is a somatic experience before it is a cognitive one
- The distinction between incident-based and issue-based conflict
- Land acknowledgment as a practice, not a formula
- Why Kai Cheng rejects "neutrality" but keeps "impartiality" in conflict work
02 Fish Jumping Out of Water: What Conflict Is
Kai Cheng defines conflict two ways — as competition for basic needs and as a system asking to be transformed — and teaches the fish/water metaphor for how implicit conflict becomes explicit. She maps physical and social basic needs, introduces the Boundaries and Domain framework adapted from Betty Martin, and embodies the Thomas-Kilmann conflict styles as animals, closing with the Window of Transformation.

- Two definitions of conflict: (1) competition for basic needs, (2) a system asking to be transformed
- The fish-and-water metaphor — implicit vs. explicit conflict
- Map of basic needs: physical needs plus social needs of belonging, freedom, and safety
- Boundaries and Domain framework (adapted from Betty Martin's Wheel of Consent)
- Resourcing practice — locating an internal or external resource before engaging conflict
- Triangulation and how conflict moves through groups via third parties
- Thomas-Kilmann conflict styles embodied as animals (shark, turtle, teddy bear, fox, owl)
- The Window of Transformation — the zone where change is possible
- Internal conflict as a valid form of conflict work
03 The Sacred Layers: Consent and Power
Kai Cheng opens with a meditation on sacredness and the layered self, then teaches the Spectrum of Consent (wanting, willing, tolerating, enduring) and the four forms of power (over, under, with, within). She distinguishes conflict from abuse, names collective trauma, and clarifies the difference between boundaries and limits.

- Sacredness meditation and the sacred layers of self: mask, shadow, inner self, sacredness
- Empowered choice and voice as a spectrum, not a binary
- The Spectrum of Consent: wanting, willing, tolerating, enduring
- Four forms of power: power over, power under, power with, power within
- The distinction between conflict and abuse — conflict requires two parties with agency
- Collective trauma (drawing on Kai Erikson's 1976 definition of damage to the social fabric)
- Collective response and why individualized healing is insufficient
- The difference between boundaries (about the self) and limits (what I will do in response)
04 Marigold Deescalation: The Micro Skills
Kai Cheng demonstrates deescalation through six Marigold roleplay scenarios, teaching the three micro skills of compassionate statements, curious questions, and firm boundaries. She introduces the train-car metaphor for separating impact from intention and offers the Loving Justice Call to Grace — the tree/acorn metaphor for moving between power over and power under.

- Marigold deescalation roleplay — six live scenarios (grocery line, neighbor's dog, unfinished report, microaggressive joke, niece's doll, cousin's birthday)
- The three micro skills: compassionate statements, curious questions, firm boundaries
"Power over speaks first, power under speaks first" — the first-speaker dynamic in conflict
- The train car metaphor: impact first, then intention
- The Loving Justice Call to Grace — the acorn and tree metaphor for how power under and power over feed each other
- Accepting imperfect but sincere apologies as a skill
- Readiness to move beyond punishment as a practice, not a bypass
- Why the person who needs deescalating most is often the facilitatorMarigold deescalation roleplay — six live scenarios (grocery line, neighbor's dog, unfinished report, microaggressive joke, niece's doll, cousin's birthday)
- The three micro skills: compassionate statements, curious questions, firm boundaries
"Power over speaks first, power under speaks first" — the first-speaker dynamic in conflict
- The train car metaphor: impact first, then intention
- The Loving Justice Call to Grace — the acorn and tree metaphor for how power under and power over feed each other
- Accepting imperfect but sincere apologies as a skill
- Readiness to move beyond punishment as a practice, not a bypass
- Why the person who needs deescalating most is often the facilitator
05 Complexity, Abolition, and Compassion Logic
Kai Cheng opens with a sea-creature movement meditation to embody complexity mindset and leads a compassionate-curiosity meditation for someone you don't like. She distinguishes transformative from restorative justice, draws on Angela Davis's "Are Prisons Obsolete?" to lay out abolition facts, and contrasts control logic with compassion logic.

- Sea-creature embodiment meditation — shellfish, anemone, jellyfish, octopus, giant squid — as progressively more complex ways of being
- Complexity mindset vs. ping-pong polarization
- Compassionate curiosity meditation for someone you don't like
- Transformative justice vs. restorative justice — distinct lineages, shared commitments
- Indigenous governance roots of transformative practice; Mennonite/Tlingit partnerships in restorative justice
- Abolition facts from Angela Davis's "Are Prisons Obsolete?"
- Control logic vs. compassion logic — two orientations to conflict
- The carceral system vs. the social support system — what each actually does
- The collective practice of saying "it doesn't have to be this way"
06 Accountability, Containment, and the Carceral Mind
Kai Cheng works a live demo navigating workplace exploitation, then names the five features of carceral systems and critiques punishment philosophy. She redefines accountability as power within — "account + ability" — with five movements, and distinguishes containment from coercion as the minimal action to remove power to harm.

- Live demo on internal conflict and workplace exploitation
- The five features of carceral systems: surveillance, classification, deprivation, corporal violence, restriction
- Punishment philosophy critique: "punishment is laundered pain, not a balancing of the scales"
- "No one enters violence for the first time having committed it"
- Accountability as power within: account + ability — the capacity to give an account of oneself
- The five movements of accountability: self-reflection, truth telling, truth hearing, apology/reparations, transformation
- Containment vs. coercion — the minimal action needed to remove someone's power to harm
- DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender) as a pattern to watch for
- Applying the accountability frame through case scenarios
07 Setting the Table: Assessment, Roles, and the Meal of Mediation
Kai Cheng guides participants through assessment practice using classroom and children's scenarios. She teaches how to read roles in groups, distinguishes collaborative from competitive process, and offers the meal metaphor for mediation — blessing, setting the table, sharing the story, washing the dishes — before introducing Theater of the Oppressed.

- Future-self visualization for your conflict work
- Assessing conflict through classroom and intergenerational case scenarios
- Reading roles in groups: leaders, caregivers, edge/outsiders, rebels — and how each holds a different function
- Stakeholder consultation techniques before intervention
- Incident-based vs. issue-based conflict as an assessment question
- Collaborative vs. competitive process — why escalation tends toward competitive
- The meal metaphor for mediation: blessing, setting the table, sharing the story, washing the dishes
- Theater of the Oppressed (Augusto Boal) as a methodology for group transformation
- Enforcing agreements without falling into control logic
08 In the Mediation: Outcomes, Endings, and the Starfish
Kai Cheng walks through a workplace mediation scenario demonstrating live conversational strategy with the three micro skills in rapid succession, then moves to an intimate-partner-harassment scenario to teach pods, non-dual problem solving, and the different forms of outcome — closing with the starfish metaphor: sometimes dissolution is the resolution.

- Workplace mediation scenario — racism, power dynamics, and the racial justice lens inside impartiality
- Generative anger release practice (martial arts stance)
- Intention, action, effect — and doing effect first in the mediation room
- The grievance narrative: making the invisible visible
- What to do when the facts don't line up — judgment calls about when you can and cannot mediate
- "Without prejudice" agreements to mediate
- Detecting performative commitments and frozen terror behind a leader's "yes"
- Pods of three to five people (mix of inside and outside the group) for each party
- Non-dual problem solving: "how can we do what's important for you while also doing what's important for me"
- Containment vs. coercion in an intimate partner context
- Minimum acceptable outcome and BATNA (best alternative to no agreement)
- The starfish metaphor — dissolution of a relationship as a form of resolution

Program Schedule

This 25-hour certificate program is available to watch online and on-demand at your own pace.

All sessions can be completed via your online Content Library which you will gain access to upon registration.

Together we will explore the intrapersonal, interpersonal, and social levels through which conflict occurs. We will learn tools for distress tolerance and emotional regulation, as well as group depolarization and perspective-taking.

Learning Platform Format

Zoom:

The live portion will be offered using Zoom in meeting format, allowing instructors and students to interact and participate in breakout sessions.

Online Learning Platform:

  • Detailed schedule and reminder emails
  • How to access via Zoom
  • All recordings available within 48 hours
  • Supporting materials including PDFs

Accessibility:

  • Download video or audio to your computer
  • Lifetime access to the content
  • Live captioning and transcripts in English

Certificate of Completion

Requirements to receive the Certificate:

  • Attend the live sessions or watch the recordings
  • Complete any required assignments or reflections
  • Participate in supervision groups (where applicable)

Registration / Enrollment

Secure your spot in this certificate program. Payment plans and member pricing available at checkout.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Questions, answered

What are the dates, schedule and time commitment?

All sessions are available to watch live online and on-demand at your own pace.

Who is Conflict Resolution Facilitator Training Certificate designed for?

This course is open to everyone interested in relationships, coaching, helping professions, facilitation, caregiving, parenting, mentorship, health care, yoga, teaching, leadership, pastoral work, marriage, sex & sexuality, Transformative justice, healers and activists. If you’re looking for a strong foundation in conflict resolution skills that incorporates the body, trauma awareness, and anti-oppression then this course is for you.

This is an education program and not a licenser program.

Will there be an orientation session for Conflict Resolution Facilitator Training Certificate?

No there will not be an orientation session.

Do I need to attend live or am I able to watch recordings for Conflict Resolution Facilitator Training Certificate?

This program was broadcast live in June 2023. All the live sessions were recorded and students may now watch in their own time (more information below). Please note, captioning was only available during the live sessions and will not be included in the recordings.

Can I interact with the instructor? Will I receive guidance?

The instructor will not be available to answer individual questions for those interacting with the recordings. A private online community forum of peers is provided for the certificate.

What are the homework requirements?

There is a one-hour homework requirement to complete the certificate.

Is there a deadline for registration?

No; this recorded program is available for purchase at any time, and users will have lifetime access.

How can I access the online course recordings?

ONLINE LEARNING PLATFORM: Once you register, you will receive access to our online learning platform which will include all the information about the certificate, including:

  • Detailed course materials
  • Recordings of all live sessions, totaling 24 hours of course material
  • Supporting materials provided by your instructors

ACCESSIBILITY | Video / Audio: Within our online learning platform, you may watch the video within your online library or download the video or audio to your computer. You will have lifetime access to the content.

ACCESSIBILITY | Live Captioning / Transcripts: Captioning is not available on the recordings. Transcripts will be offered in English.

ACCESSIBILITY | Reading Lists: The reading list will include items available at the public library or will be provided as a PDF where possible. PDFs of the instructor’s presentation will also be provided.

+ Is this a the

Is this a theoretical or practical (experiential) program?

While some theory will be presented to support the learning, the primary focus of the practice is experiential, giving practical tools for the participants.

Will I receive a certificate?

You’ll receive a Certificate of Completion once you have completed the following:

  • Attend the live sessions or watch the recordings.
  • Complete the homework assignment.
  • Submit full payment.

All students who complete this program will receive a Certificate of Completion whether they attend it LIVE or watch the RECORDINGS.

Will Continuing Education Units (CEUs) be offered?

CEUs will not be available for this program.

Do you offer Scholarships?

We do not offer scholarships for this program.

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