Conflict Coaching is an opportunity to work “behind the scenes” with a professional dispute resolution expert to navigate a real-life conflict. Your Conflict Coach works with you in real time, helping you clarify your interests, understand your alternatives, and generate ideas for creative solutions to challenging conflicts. Your Conflict Coach also helps you practice and improve your communication with the other party/ies, so you can be the most effective and confident advocate for yourself.

Yes.  Conflict Coaching is a confidential process. Your Coach will not disclose anything that is discussed in your coaching sessions to anyone without your written permission. Your Coach will be working with you only, not communicating directly with any other parties to your conflict. 

Yes. While Coaching is a confidential process, there are some situations when your Coach may disclose statements made during coaching, such as: (1) when she/he witness, or has reason to believe, that a client is a threat to him/herself, or any other person, or to the property of others; (2) when she/he witnesses, or has reason to believe, that a child is at risk or endangered pursuant to the child protective protocol of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; (3) a client institutes a suit or ethics complaint against the Coach and the Coach needs to disclose information from the coaching sessions for her/his own defense.

No. Although your Coach might be a licensed attorney, she/he does not represent you as a lawyer and you should not rely on anything she/he says as legal advice. 

No. Your Coach works with you “behind the scenes” to help you negotiate and communicate for yourself skillfully and confidently. 

Yes. While most clients use a Coach for help navigating a real conflict, some use Coaching to help build specific skills that are helpful for conflict resolution and communication generally. 

That is up to you. You can work with your Coach for as long as you feel is necessary and you can end the coaching at any time. 

Coaching can be in person or virtual depending on the needs of the participants and the mediator. During the CoVID-19 pandemic, coaching will be conducted virtually when doing so is recommended by federal, state or local health authorities during the CoVID-19 pandemic. When those authorities allow for in-person mediations, you and your Coach may convene in person at a mutually convenient place and time, if you both feel you can do so safely. 

Your Coach will ask you to complete a confidential questionnaire prior to the first coaching session that only she/he will read. The questionnaire will ask about your goals for the coaching, the nature of the dispute, your underlying interests and alternatives, what you have tried to do to resolve the dispute, and what you understand about the other party’s/ies’ interests and perspectives. It will also ask your communication and learning style and approach to conflicts generally.

Please notify your Coach prior to the first coaching session if you require accommodations. Coaches will do their very best to provide those accommodations whenever possible.