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This year, Conflict Resolution Day is Oct. 19. Join the celebration.
Conflict Resolution Day was conceived by the Association for Conflict Resolution (ACR) and has been celebrated annually since 2005. According to ACR, the day “has become a time to promote and celebrate peaceful conflict resolution practices worldwide.” Although conflict management is promoted every day, Conflict Resolution Day is an exciting and concentrated time for conflict management practitioners to share their knowledge and resources with the public. Practitioners do it because resolution feels so good and unaddressed or uncontrolled conflict can be harmful to a person’s health and well-being, productivity, relationships, morale, and to a person’s family, friends, and colleagues.
Some practitioners go beyond that special day and offer activities and events for a week or a month. At the UMB Workplace Mediation Service (WMS), we celebrate and promote conflict management for the month of October. And this year we’re focusing on the value and practice of listening.
And we are committed to outreach and conflict management in October and throughout the year because oftentimes the difference between addressing and not addressing conflict is whether folks access the tools that are available to help them. Those tools can be within ourselves, resources at work, or through the community. So, whether you’re in Baltimore or somewhere else check out some in-person and virtual opportunities to help you:
- Improve your conflict resolution or communication skills
- Address an uncontrolled work-related or personal conflict in your life
- Encourage others to try an approach to conflict resolution that helps everyone involved feel heard and understood.
A few activities happening this month:
- Discovery Chats on Listening, and an Active Listening Discussion and Primer: Workplace Mediation Service (UMB)
- Grades K-8 Bookmark Design Contest: Maryland Courts
- Workshop on "The Apology Unraveled": Conflict Resolution Day Alberta Committee
- Self-paced reading of "Listen Like You Mean It": Conflict Resolution Month in Colorado
- Additional events from around the world are added to the ACR website
And when you’re looking for help with a situation, contact us. We can help with work-related conflicts and tell you about resources for personal conflicts.
Resolution is worth celebrating.
Aisha Samples, MS
410-706-4270
WMS is part of the Center for Dispute Resolution at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law (C-DRUM).