Annual Meeting and Fall Conference
of the Maine Association of Mediators
Empowering Parties with Diverse Mental Health Needs
Guest Presenter: Dan Berstein, MHS | MH Mediate
Overview: At this year’s Annual Meeting and Fall Conference, we’re delighted to host Dan Berstein, MHS. Dan is a mediator and mental health expert living with bipolar disorder. He has spent over fifteen years studying mental health and dispute resolution and developing tools to help all sorts of mental health stakeholders address concerns about challenging behaviors and accessibility without inadvertently becoming discriminatory. His company, MH Mediate, has helped thousands of people, organizations, and government agencies improve how they talk about mental health, become accessible, and address challenging behaviors.
Conference Agenda:
10:00 -10:15 Welcome and Introductory Comments
10:15 - 11:00 Keynote Remarks: We All Have Mental Health Needs
Dan shares a powerful framework for appreciating how mental health and trauma impacts mediators and parties and introduces the three other topics of the day - mental health communication skills, challenging behavior planning, and preventing discrimination. Participants are encouraged to submit their examples of challenging situations for use in the afternoon’s workshop on planning for challenging behaviors.
11:00-11:10 Break
11:10-12:10 Introductory Workshop: Talk About Mental Health in Empowering Ways
Learn the terminologies, etiquette, and skills necessary to communicate effectively when someone discloses a mental health problem, when there are accusations, when there are suspicions, or when a mental health concern arises as part of the facts of the case.
12:10-1:00 Lunch Break and Optional Social/Member Forum Time
1:00-1:30 Annual Meeting: Maine Association of Mediators
1:30-2:30 Applied Research Presentation: Notice and Prevent Discrimination in ADR
Our implicit biases make it hard for us to perceive microaggressions, disparate treatment, illegal inquiries, and inappropriate screening practices. Receive tools to recognize, prevent, and respond to all of these problems using published case study examples of mistakes made by major ADR institutions.
2:30-2:45 Break
2:45-4:00 Challenging Behavior Planning Session: Plan for Emergencies, Disruptions, and Disconnects
Drawing on the submitted examples from before the conference and the morning keynote, Dan will teach a framework for planning to respond to challenging behaviors. We will cover how to be specific in defining the behavior, how to plan ahead to be impartial, and how to be consistent in responding.
4:00-4:15 Closing Remarks
Post-Meeting Resources
Participants will receive takeaway tools they can use in their practice and a follow-up message orienting them to resources they can use to put all of the day’s lessons into regular practice.
