plementation might not be as strong and sustainable with a short process).
Part 1 – Content: NVC foundation training, key communication competences and conflict resolution skills. Focus on practical application.
Training varies from 4 to 12 meetings, and 3 hours to full days (depending on the goal, group size and other conditions such as timing, finances, etc).
Part 2 – Content: Deepened NVC training. Adding the schools/groups’ choice of focus. Training highly relevant and adapted to their needs and daily work, with much of the time devoted to communicative practice. Training varies from 4-6 meetings, 3 hours to full days.
Part 3 – Content: Deepened NVC training, including sharing NVC skills with others. Setting-up of a practice/pilot group of motivated key people led by a trainer. 3-5 meetings.
All projects include written and practical material to strengthen understanding and implementation. Sometimes a “documentary” workbook is produced from the work in the project, which can serve for dissemination to other schools or groups.
Challenges and opportunities posed by the context
Some projects have covered entire schools and lasted for a long time, from one year up to 12 years, with regular training courses. These projects have had different approaches and goals; for example, to increase the ability to deal with difficult conversations, to prevent and deal with conflict, to strengthen communicative leadership in the classroom, and to integrate democratic values. Certain conditions have proven to be of advantage when introducing NVC in a school:
- Mutual agreement and firm establishment of the project and its goals with all involved.
- Clear and precise conditions for implementation of the project so that everyone is aware of what is required of them.
- Regular courses with practical and theoretical exercises to be completed between the courses in order to support the process.
- Participation also from leadership teams and administrators.
The challenges are: the generally heavy workload for teachers, and finding the time, motivation and resources to focus attention on conflict management as a part of education.
Results and impacts
Here are some results from five projects in Stockholm, Sweden: one pre-school, three municipal schools and one Waldorf school. Altogether, 137 teachers have taken part in these projects and evaluations. The intention was to adapt the projects to each school’s specific conditions, such as limited time (the projects lasted from 6 to 12 months) and limited financial resources, and to make the content as practical as possible for the teachers’ everyday work.
Results revealed in the evaluation (shown as an average across the five projects) included:
- 90% of the participants felt they had increased understanding of factors facilitating communication/co-operation.
- Increased understanding of factors that prevent communication/co-operation (87%).
- Greater feeling of security in dealing with conflicts (80%).
- Increased understanding of communication that facilitates learning (78%).
- Greater feeling of security in difficult/challenging conversations (71%).
- Increased ability to achieve constructive co-operation (67%).
There is consistent feedback that NVC strengthens self-awareness and influences all relationships. Starting from the teacher-student relationship, this will inevitably spread to others – teacher to teacher and student to parent, etc. When students experience this NVC approach from teachers, they get used to handling differences and conflicts with respect and care, which is a skill for life. Students report that they are taken seriously and helped to understand themselves, other people and conflict situations. From this they gain self-knowledge and a sense of security. This is a foundation for successful conflict management.
Sometimes students have grown beyond their families in conflict resolution skills, which is not always easy. Parents can be both inspired and annoyed by that dynamic. Often projects start with teachers, and later on parents seek to know more as they see big changes i