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A Violence Prevention Program Focusing on Conflict Resolution and Peer Mediation

In today's society when students can arrive at school carrying weapons rather than schoolbooks, the New Jersey State Bar Foundation is seizing the opportunity to promote violence prevention by helping interested schools establish Conflict Resolution and Peer Mediation Programs.

Conflict Resolution and Peer Mediation Guides


Developed by the Foundation's Conflict Resolution Curriculum Panel, which is comprised of educators, these guides contain lesson plans and student handouts aimed at issues such as resolving conflict, developing listening skills, dealing with peer pressure, managing anger and developing peer mediation programs. Available in elementary, middle and high school levels, the lessons demonstrate how students can take appropriate steps to prevent a potentially harmful situation. Each guide is accompanied by a colorful poster depicting the "Win/Win" guidelines for resolving conflicts. The guides are free and have been distributed to schools since the program's inception in 1994.

A second volume with new, original lesson plans is currently in development. To order either Volume 1 or Volume 2 of the Conflict Resolution and Peer Mediation Guides, please fill out the order form located at the back of this brochure.

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Training Conferences


Conflict Resolution and Peer Mediation Training conferences provide an opportunity for teachers to learn how to use conflict resolution lessons and train students to be peer mediators. To guarantee a hands-on experience, participation in the training sessions is limited, and separate sessions are held for elementary and middle/high school teachers to address the special needs of each.

Follow-up sessions are held several months after the initial two-day training programs to deal with issues that may have arisen during implementation of the program. Sessions are held monthly at the New Jersey Law Center in New Brunswick. For information about future training conferences call 1-800-FREE-LAW.

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Resource Videos

The Foundation maintains an extensive video library to help enhance a teacher's ability to expose students to conflict resolution skills. The following videos may be borrowed with a $100 refundable security deposit. Personal or school checks will be accepted. The Foundation does not cash checks unless videos are lost or damaged. Checks will be returned immediately upon receipt of the undamaged video.

Elementary Videos

  • Conflict Resolution: Elementary Grades (grades K-5) - This video is designed to model successful conflict resolution programs and help teachers, counselors and administrators apply those programs in their own school settings. Lesson plans and handouts are also provided as guidance for using the video at a staff in-service training session. (26 minutes)

  • Conflict Resolution: Primary Grades (grades K-2) - This video is designed to help staff members understand basic conflict resolution, identify the particular needs of their school and classrooms and consider how they would like to approach conflict resolution with their students. The video provides a clear demonstration of the look and feel of school-based conflict resolution programs for young children. (15 minutes)

  • Everybody's Different (grades K-2) - Designed to help young children accept the diversity that surrounds them, this video depicts various ways in which people are different. It also helps children understand that being different can be positive, and that individual differences, when viewed as a whole, make the world a better and more interesting place to live. (14 minutes)

  • Face to Face: Conflict Resolution in Schools (grades K-12) - This video features successful conflict resolution programs implemented in Toronto schools. Staff members explain how their programs work and how they benefit students. Aspects of the programs are shown in action. (25 minutes)

  • Getting Better at Getting Along: Conflict Resolution (grades 2-4) - This video provides an introduction to conflict resolution by demonstrating essential techniques. (16 minutes)

  • I Get So Mad! (grade K-2) - This video helps make students aware that anger is a natural emotion everyone experiences at times. Offering easy-to-understand ways to cope, students learn that it's not getting angry that counts, but how they decide to handle it. (13 minutes)

  • It's Not Fair! (grades 2-4) - At the playground, in class, at home, the cry "It's Not Fair!" rings out. But how is fairness decided? Using simple dramatic situations, this video helps students cope with issues of fairness and acquire the strategies for resolving conflict. (14 minutes)

  • KidSpeak (grades 1-5) - KidSpeak is designed to show both educators and students the steps involved in training students to be peer mediators. This video portrays students in role-plays, discussing with their peers and the peer mediator coordinator issues that are appropriate for mediation and those that are not. (14 minutes)

  • No More Teasing! (grades 2-4) - This video presents effective strategies kids can use to protect themselves against teasing or bullying. Common teasing situations are introduced and solutions are offered. The video shows how students can change their own behavior to lessen the impact of teasing or bullying. (14 minutes)

  • Stop Teasing Me! (grades K-2) - This video helps young students understand how teasing affects other people's feelings. Vignettes illustrate how teasing not only hurts victims' feelings but can leave teasers themselves feeling bad. (13 minutes)

  • Student Workshop: Working It Out (grades K-2) - Designed to equip young children with the skills they need to resolve their day-to-day conflicts in a systematic, step-by-step manner, the video uses lively images, music and characters with whom children can easily identify to demonstrate conflict resolution skills. (20 minutes)

  • We Can Work It Out! (grades K-2) - This video teaches young students age-appropriate strategies for resolving conflicts. It demonstrates how asking questions, listening and thinking of ways to do things differently can provide satisfying solutions. Using scenarios performed by on-screen peers and a storyteller to emphasize the points made, the program helps viewers get better at getting along. (11 minutes)

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Middle and High School Videos

  • Beyond Hate with Bill Moyers (grades 6-12) - Through the experience of world figures, gang leaders and young people trying to cope with violence in their lives, this video chronicles the impact of hate on its victims and probes the many dimensions of hate. Moyers listens to those gripped by hatred and those victimized by it and also focuses on individuals and groups who are working to move beyond hatred to achieve tolerance and acceptance. (60 minutes)

  • Conflict at School: Dealing With Adults (grades 5-9) - Using scenarios typical of middle school life, this video discusses the importance of speaking respectfully and behaving in an adult manner. An emphasis is placed on finding the right time and place to talk, apologizing if you are wrong and using "I Messages" to say how you feel. The video demonstrates how compromise and negotiation can help kids resolve conflicts with adults. (28 minutes)

  • Conflict Resolution (grades 9-12) - This video teaches strategies for conflict resolution and helps students turn conflict into a positive experience. The video shows students how to avoid conflict, resolve problems and build better relationships. (26 minutes)

  • Conflict Resolution: Grades 5-12 - This video is designed to help teachers, counselors and administrators understand the components of a successful conflict resolution program. Two schools with exemplary programs - a high school and a middle school - provide models for expanding and evaluating existing programs or developing new programs. Lesson plans and handouts are provided as guidance for using the video at a staff in-service training session. (25 minutes)

  • Face to Face: Conflict Resolution in Schools (grades K-12) - This video features successful conflict resolution programs implemented in Toronto schools. Staff members explain how their programs work and how they benefit students. Aspects of the programs are shown in action. (25 minutes)

  • Increase the Peace: Conflict Resolution (grades 9 -12) - This video is designed to appeal to urban youth by exploring familiar scenarios and issues. This program is also intended to motivate students to learn the skills needed to solve conflicts and gain greater control over themselves and their lives. (32 minutes)

  • Me and My Parents: Working It Out (grades 5-9) - This video helps adolescents understand the nature of parent-child conflict and how their own attitudes contribute. It challenges viewers to learn newer, more grown-up ways of communicating with their parents and provides easy-to-learn practical techniques for resolving conflict. (23 minutes)

  • Stop the Violence! (grades 9-12) - This video presents an overview of the problem of violence as it impacts adolescents in our communities, and offers realistic techniques for avoiding violence in a variety of true-to-life situations. Intervention programs are demonstrated. (27 minutes)

  • Student Workshop: Anger Management Skills (grades 7-12) - This hands-on workshop teaches the anger management skills that enable teens to get along better with friends, family and authority figures. The video uses an MTV-style format to help students discover the things that trigger their anger and understand the consequences of angry behavior. Accompanying handouts provide practice in developing effective ways of expressing anger and controlling angry behavior. (30 minutes)

  • Student Workshop: Conflict Resolution Skills (grades 5-9) - This video can function as a workshop to teach students the skills of conflict resolution. Through hands-on activities and practice, students acquire six basic skills of conflict resolution: Getting the Facts, Active Listening, Body Language, Tone of Voice, "I" Messages and Brainstorming. The accompanying handouts provide practice in each skill. (35 minutes)

  • Student Workshop Mediation: Getting to Win-Win! (grades 7-12) - Using true-to-life conflicts, this video demonstrates the techniques and strategies that mediators use to help disputants work out conflicts and arrive at win-win solutions. Accompanying student handouts and group activities provide opportunities for hands-on practice in the skills of mediation. (24 minutes)

  • Student Workshop: Mediation Skills (grades 5-9) - In a step-by-step approach, this video workshop trains students to be peer mediators, equipping them with skills for conducting successful mediation. Accompanying handouts and individual and group activities provide hands-on practice in the skills and steps involved. (30 minutes)

  • Student Workshop: Resolving Conflicts (grades 9-12) - This video takes students step-by-step through the conflict resolution process. Students learn to apply specific, easy-to-learn skills and effective strategies for resolving conflicts peacefully. Accompanying handouts, individualized and group activities provide hands-on practice in the vocabulary, skills and steps involved. (24 minutes)

  • Teen-Adult Conflict: Working It Out (grades 7-12) - Using scenarios illustrating typical adult-teen conflicts, this video teaches conflict resolution techniques specifically aimed at helping teens get along better with the adults in their lives. The program emphasizes good communication skills, brainstorming for solutions and negotiating for win-win solutions. (28 minutes)

  • Violence Prevention: Inside Out (grades 9 - 12) - This video explores the belief that violence is learned and looks at the cycle of violence, showing how and why violence erupts. The video also shows that, while violence is a learned behavior, prevention of violence and coping skills can be learned as well. (62 minutes)

To borrow the above videos send refundable checks in the amount of $100 (for each video) made payable to the New Jersey State Bar Foundation, New Jersey Law Center, One Constitution Square, New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1500 Attn: Video Loan Library.

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NJSBF Educational Publications


The following publications may be obtained by calling the New Jersey State Bar Foundation at 1-800-FREE LAW.
  • Bill of Rights Funbook, A Teacher's Guide is a reproducible activity book for younger students featuring puzzles, word searches, etc. dealing with the Constitution. (Limit one booklet per teacher.)

  • Educational Guide for Trial Jurors answers a juror's most asked questions and explains what is expected of them. The pamphlet discusses the difference between a civil case and a criminal case, the meaning and requirements of grand and petit juries and how a jury is selected.

  • Law Adventure/Law Fair Mock Trial Exercises features the previous year's winning cases from the Foundation's Law Adventure and Law Fair competitions.

  • Legal Consequences of Substance Abuse explains how New Jersey's strict drug laws and vigorous enforcement can impact your life. Free copies are available in both English and Spanish. (Bulk orders can be filled for school and community groups.)

  • The Legal Eagle, the Foundation's legal newspaper for kids, is published three times a year and deals with timely legal issues of importance to students.

  • Mini-Court Teacher's Guide is a mock trial activity booklet for grades K-2 and offers teachers of young students ways to incorporate the law into their curriculum.

  • Mock Trial High School Workbook contains information for entering the Foundation's Vincent J. Apruzzese High School Mock Trial Competition and the case for the annual competition.

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All of the New Jersey State Bar Foundation's programs and publications are made
possible by funding from the IOLTA Fund of the Bar of New Jersey.

New Jersey State Bar Foundation
New Jersey Law Center
One Constitution Square
New Brunswick, NJ 08901
(732) 249-5000 Telephone
(732) 828-0034 Fax

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