The Center for Justice & Peacebuilding is pleased to announce spring weekend trainings. All courses can be taken for either credit or training,and will be held on the campus of Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Further information is available on our website, at www.emu.edu/cjp/grad. If you have any questions or wish to apply, please contact Janelle Myers-Benner at bennerj@emu.edu or 540-432-4986. (Please note that scholarships are not available for weekend courses; the audit fee for a one-credit course is $140.)

Nurturing Resilience for Sustained Peacebuilding, taught by Bill Lowrey and Alice Petersen. Resilience is the capacity to rebound, recover and adapt after experiencing significant shocks, and to be able to retain, strengthen and sustain commitments while maintaining core values and integrity. This one-credit course will provide a brief introduction to community and organizational resilience in a rapidly changing and turbulent world, and participants will construct a personal resilience plan. Offered Jan. 11-12.

Victim-Offender Conferencing, with Lorraine Stutzman Amstutz. This course will introduce the restorative justice process that brings together victims and offenders of crime to talk about the impact of the crime on their lives and what the future could look like. It will examine victim and offender issues, benefits and risks of conferencing, and the role of the facilitator, and will include opportunities for participants to gain hands-on experience of the process. Offered Jan. 25-26.

Techniques for Group Facilitation, taught by Catherine Barnes. This one-credit course is designed to develop participants’ understanding of facilitation practice and their basic facilitation skills. It will focus on how to design effective processes for dialogue, deliberation and decision-making. Offered Feb. 22-23.

We are also offering one week-long course for training:

Strategies for Trauma Awareness & Resilience, Level I (training only). STAR is a five-day training that examines trauma and its effects on individuals and communities, including how unhealed trauma can lead to cycles of victims and violence. This training will give tools and processes for address trauma in a holistic way—body, mind, and spirit—and for resilience and self-care for those working with traumatized people. Offered Feb. 4-8; register at www.emu.edu/star.