Conflict First Aid™-equipped friendships, families, communities and organizations are healthier ones.
Respect. Progress. Peace.
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We're clambering for change - and more and more fighting...even with friends. Conflict First Aid is proven to help, can be learned easily and stops conflict driven escalation, fear, discomfort, and avoidance.
Joan Feringa, Founder
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This is the home of Conflict First Aid™
Learn the Skill
(get this...even Conflict Specialists do NOT know how to do it)
There is a wait list.
Conflict First Aid™
Certificate workshops... online or on-site, in-person.
Relationships. Families. Workplaces. Communities. Difficult people. Difficult problems. We all have need for it - Conflict First Aid™ helps.
5 SAFE, universal, evidence-based steps to stay out of the middle.
Conflict First Aid™-equipped friendships, families, teams, leaders, communities and organizations can get and stay healthy.
Are you ready and waiting for your Conflict First Aid Certification training?
Join the "Ping List" and be among the first to know when the training and practice support page is updated:
"Joan is the real deal when stakes are high and failure isn’t an option”
Andrea J. Lee (Author, We Need to Talk, Your Guide to Challenging Business Conversations)
Meet the Founder
Joan Feringa (McLeod) has been a conflict management specialist (complaint, culture and conflict systems, intervention, resolution and prevention) for over 25 years.
As an educator, leader, partner, and coach with a long-standing connection to water (she was on the water with her Dad, with Sea Cadets and the Canadian Coast Guard and lives near it today): navigator/practitioner competencies continue to inform her work today.
WHERE DID CONFLICT FIRST AID™ START?
A 'life long learner' and scholar who is always open to learning, Joan's Master's thesis (2002), "A Hammer or the Whole Toolbox? Conflict Management in Organizations" proved conflict management support (neutral and just-in-time) was sometimes welcome and effective: but not even close to accessible, quick, or easily enough.
It sure wasn't fun - or the obvious thing to do. No wonder she, herself, was a conflict avoider.
The Gap - Seeing CONFLICT FIRST AID™ as "Missing" is Born
In 2017, after ushering her own family through a serious mental health emergency a series of events proved there was a desperate gap: there was no scaffolding for support of social conflict at all. She knew a universal way that she'd seen helped for conflicts of all kinds. She'd spent 15 years testing it, teaching it, mentoring it - and seeing it slip out of people's hands given the level of conflict competency out there in the world.
The basics were NOT there.
The universal way was NOT complex.
It was clear: mental health first aid is only a few decades old. Medical (standard) first aid was unknown just a few centuries ago, but today, we all know 911, antiseptics and sterile bandages...maybe even CPR.
Joan identified a clear and critical gap. The missing piece in conflict prevention, management and de-escalation was simple and quick: accessible Conflict First Aid™.
The Moment
After proving volunteers (from all walks of life) could learn and help with evidence-based de-escalation and prevention competencies (equivalent to medical and mental health first aid), the first Conflict First Aid™ certificates were awarded in January, 2020.
Foundations of Conflict First Aid™ can be learned in just 4.5 hours.
Wish you could ask the founder a question?
She'll answer!
Email her, here: [email protected]
A SAFE sequence.
5 simple steps that are EASY to do.
Conflict First Aid™ Foundations can be learned in just a few hours so you're practice-ready.
Practice Cohorts are underway. They're currently free.
NOTE: As promised, Conflict First Aid™ Plank Owners, Community Practice Portal and Conflict School Zones are returning soon.
Ready to be Certified in Conflict First Aid™? Join the Wait List!
Want a Conflict Specialist? Need more than "First Aid"?
We can help with that too!
Leaders, teams, boards and communities or organizations as a whole?
Families? Partners? Difficult people? Need change, assessment, coaching or intervention?
After 25 years of learning, research, application and operations in all conflict management practices, we've seen it all and people love what we do.
Workshops, mentoring, project management, culture and inclusion support, coaching and MORE. Just ask - click here.
Whether conflict is disruptive, costly, difficult or impossible at home, work or your community (toxic people and problems are everywhere), conflict support and expertise can help: we work with "swift assessment" so the work happens immediately for almost instant results in calm, confidence and clarity.
With Conflict Navigator protocols we know how to help you know what to do and HOW to do it with ease.
If you need support, at the first opportunity, ask. From there, we can help you bring calm to changing the way you or others react to conflict disruption, disrespect or difficulty. Get support for yourself or for others - it changes EVERYTHING.
Or, register for one of the next courses and you'll be one step closer to knowing all you need about Conflict First Aid™ - you can get started on fixing it yourself, today.
Join the Wait List!
Contact us. We're all rebuilding. The answers you want can be asked...just ask them, email, here.
If there is need for help with difficult people or their problems just now, just once, or given a consistently damaging concern, fear, or frustration - we likely know how to get you started when you should or need to address it.
Keep choices, concerns, safe: they don't need to get worse.
Conflict First Aid can help...reach out, here.
Spread the word yourself!
