Build the Skills to Lead Meaningful Repair and Lasting Change

Restorative Practices Facilitator Training

Comprehensive, experiential training designed to equip educators, professionals, and community leaders with the tools to guide restorative conversations with confidence, clarity, and integrity—and to shape the relational conditions that make those conversations effective.

Group Conferencing for Family Law

A restorative approach to family law dispute resolution

July 11-12, Salt Lake City

14 CLE Credits Available

A Two-Day Intensive Training for Family Law Attorneys, Mediators, and Dispute Resolution Professionals

The family law system was built to reach decisions. It was not built to establish a new basis for relationships moving forward.

For the professionals who work inside it every day — attorneys, mediators, and therapists — that gap is impossible to ignore. You have watched litigation escalate conflict that was already at a breaking point. You have seen co-parenting relationships collapse under the weight of adversarial process. You have worked with children caught between two parents the system made into opponents. You already know something is broken.

This training equips you to operate differently within it, using restorative practices to strengthen relationships before conflict escalates, navigate breakdowns more constructively, and support more durable outcomes over time.

Restorative practices offer a fundamentally different framework — one grounded in the principle that people are more likely to change, cooperate, and heal when they are treated as participants in the process rather than subjects of it. Originally developed in criminal justice contexts and now applied across schools, community organizations, and healthcare settings, restorative practices are increasingly recognized as one of the most promising frameworks for transforming how family law professionals approach high-conflict, court-involved cases.

Over two intensive days, this training bridges clinical, legal, and process-oriented perspectives to give you practical tools you can use the week you return to work—while also helping you understand how your role as a professional shapes the relational environment in which families operate.

You will leave with:

  • A working fluency in restorative principles and how they might translate into family law contexts— including terminology, group conferencing formats, and a relational approach to accountability grounding in learning and behavior change

  • Concrete facilitator skills for reducing escalation in high-conflict cases and for establishing clear relational expectations early in the process to prevent further unnecessary breakdowns

  • An understanding of how restorative approaches can support therapeutic practice, and what the research says about outcomes for families and children—including how relational practices contribute to longer-term behavioral change and stability

  • Considerations for applying these tools within the real constraints of court-involved cases — including matters involving domestic violence, parental alienation, and child welfare—with attention to safety, power, and context

Who should attend:

This training is designed for professionals who work at the intersection of family conflict and the legal system — family law attorneys, divorce mediators, custody evaluators, guardians ad litem, therapists specializing in co-parenting or court-involved cases, and social workers embedded in family court settings.

The training is particularly valuable for those who recognize that everyday decisions—how we structure conversations, set expectations, and respond to conflict—shape the relational dynamics families must live within long after a case is resolved.

If your work asks you to manage high emotion, and advocate for outcomes that serve children and families — this training was built for you.

Format: Two days | 7 hours each | 14 CLE credits available for attorneys | Coffee, pastries and lunch will be served

Location: Sandy, UT (a private home on the East Bench, address provided upon registration confirmation)

Registration Deadline: June 8th, 2026
Early Bird: 10% Discount if Registered by May 22nd, 2026! Enter Discount Code FAMLAW

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At its best, this work helps people move from reacting to harm toward intentionally shaping the relational conditions that make better outcomes possible.

FAQs

  • This training is built for family law professionals — parent attorneys, mediators, and guardians ad litem — who want practical tools not just for resolving conflict that has occurred in the past, but for preventing future conflict before it escalates.

  • Mediation is designed to resolve disputes. Group conferencing is designed to manage relationships — before conflict escalates, during moments of breakdown, and in the aftermath of harm. Mediation typically involves only the parties and a neutral third party, often assumes relatively equal bargaining power, and is oriented toward reaching agreement. Restorative practices offer a broader framework for shaping how expectations are set, how accountability is structured, and how people communicate over time. They're not a replacement for mediation — they provide new tools for a different set of problems.

  • It’s both, but the training is practice-oriented. Over two days, participants build facilitation skills they can apply to real cases the week they return to work. The curriculum is grounded in Ada’s 30 years of applied experience across law enforcement, victim advocacy, and institutional consulting — as well as her scholarship in restorative practices.

  • This question is one of the most important in the field, and this training addresses it directly. Restorative practices are not appropriate for every situation — and Ada brings extensive experience to this question. She began her career as a police officer coordinating domestic violence response, helped write North Carolina's statewide law enforcement model policy for intimate partner violence, and conducted the state's first domestic violence safety and accountability audit. She has spent decades understanding where these approaches carry risks, particularly in cases involving coercive control, trauma, and significant power imbalance. The training covers considerations for applying these tools appropriately within those constraints — including what restorative practices should not be used for, and when other interventions are more appropriate.

  • Yes. 14 CLE credits are available for attorneys. If you have questions about approval in a specific jurisdiction, contact us prior to registration.

  • Each day runs for seven hours. The format is interactive and experiential — the emphasis is on real practice, not lecture. Participants leave with tools they've used in the room, not just frameworks they've heard described.