Conflict resolution may help defuse youth violence

With roots in international diplomacy, conflict resolution techniques have been recognized as effective in preventing violence in schools and workplaces as well as averting warfare between hostile nations.

The goal is to find solutions that all parties to a conflict can accept. Children can begin learning and using conflict resolution skills at an early age, at home, at school and in their neighborhood or community.

Many schools throughout the country have begun to integrate conflict resolution education into their curricula––beginning as early as the first grade.

The U.S. Department of Justice Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention has developed a fact sheet outlining four basic approaches to school-based conflict resolution education. By choosing various elements from each, educators can tailor programs to a school’s specific needs.

•Freestanding courses in which dispute resolution principles and skills are presented as a distinct class or study unit. This is also called the "process curriculum" approach.

•Peer mediation involves training young people to act as problem-solvers, helping to settle disputes among their peers.

•Peaceable classroom incorporates conflict resolution education into a curriculum’s core subjects; further, teachers use these techniques to manage their classrooms.

•Peaceable school programs integrate conflict resolution into every aspect of the school’s operation, involving every level of staff.

As many as 10,000 programs using these techniques have been implemented across the country.

For more information, visit www.safeyouth.org or call (866) 723-3968.