2024 Introductory Interdisciplinary Collaborative Practice Training

Introductory Interdisciplinary
Collaborative Practice Training

4 half-days via Zoom

Thursday, November 7, 2024
Friday, November 8, 2024
Monday, November 11, 2024
Tuesday, November 12, 2024

8:30 am – 1:00 pm each day

Presented By Program Trainers:

Lisa Gresham, CDFA
Elizabeth S. Thayer, Ph.D.
Kim L. Duell, Esq.

As we continue to engage in a “virtual” and hybrid court structure, our collaborative trainers have developed an online collaborative divorce training that introduces professionals to a process that enables couples to complete their divorce without ever stepping into a courthouse building. Lawyers, licensed mental health professionals, and financial specialists work together as a team to help families reduce conflict, exchange financial data, and resolve legal issues. This training meets the minimum standards established by the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals (IACP).

The collaborative model is a non-adversarial approach to divorce that differs from mediation, arbitration, and other dispute resolution options.

Training Topics will include:

• How to make the paradigm shift from a litigation model to a collaborative model
• The stages of a collaborative case
• The roles of each member of the professional team
• Ethical considerations for each of the professions
• The roadmap of a collaborative case

Participants will learn:

• The process and substantive skills for completing a collaborative case
• The basic components of interest based negotiations
• How to work effectively within the interdisciplinary team
• Strategies for dealing with impasse
• How to avoid common mistakes
• Basic assessment tools for determining the right process for clients.

CEs and CLEs pending.

Special Registration Notices

• No cancellation refunds after 10/28/24
• For those who have taken the 40-Hour Basic Family & Divorce Mediation Training, this is an excellent “next step” in obtaining the training necessary to meet the membership requirements of IACP and CCND.
• For those who have not taken the mediation training, this course may be taken first, followed by the 40-Hour mediation training in February 2025.
• For those also interested in Family Mediation, you may receive an additional discount to register simultaneously for both our February 2025 40-Hour Basic Family & Divorce Mediation Training and this training.

Our Trainers

Lisa Gresham, CDFA®

Lisa Gresham is a Certified Divorce Financial Analyst and founder of Equitable Divorce Solutions, LLC. As a financial professional, Ms. Gresham’s services include lifestyle and needs analysis, asset valuation, pension analysis and valuation, cash flow analysis and projected net worth and settlement negotiation and evaluation. She focuses on budgeting, evaluating tax and cash flow implications with possible settlement scenarios and short and long term projections in order to help her clients meet their financial needs.

In her mediation practice and when acting as a financial neutral in a Collaborative Divorce, Ms. Gresham draws on her extensive interpersonal communication training and skills to help her clients identify their interests, moving away from positions, in order to find workable options for the family as a whole.

In addition to her practice, Ms. Gresham is one of three partners of the CT Family Mediation Training Group, an organization providing divorce mediation training for attorneys, financial and mental health professionals.

Elizabeth S. Thayer, PhD

Dr. Thayer is a licensed psychologist at Beacon Behavioral Services LLC, West Hartford, Ct. She is trained in mediation and collaborative divorce and has many years of interdisciplinary experience as a mental health collaborative divorce coach. She is a founder or the Collaborative Connection of Connecticut practice group and a Co-Chair of the International Association of Divorce Professionals Trainers Committee. She is co-founder of the PEACE Program, a parent counseling program for parents of divorce and the co-author of two publications: The Co-Parenting Survival Guide and Adult Children of Divorce.

Dr. Thayer provides individual, group, couples and family therapy and mediation and has given numerous presentations, workshops, and trainings for professionals. She is on the Board of the Children’s Law Center, Copper Beech Institute, and a former board member of CCND.

Dr. Thayer is dedicated to working with divorce families to reduce conflict and support a respectful transition through out of court collaborative agreement.

Kim L. Duell, JD

Attorney Kim Duell has practiced family law for 38 years, constantly seeking better ways to support families going through divorce and separation. She has extensive training, practice and teaching experience in collaborative divorce, and mediation. For decades, Kim has advocated passionately for the children of divorce, as a GAL and AMC.

Kim has presented at the Connecticut Bar Association and local bar association and practice group workshops on a variety of topics. Her goal is to shift the culture of family dissolution in Connecticut, and provide an array of options to clients and families with an emphasis on problem-solving and improving communication skills for all.

She is a member of two practice groups, Collaborative Divorce Lawyers Association of Greater Hartford and Collaborative Divorce Professionals.

Attorney Duell’s law practice is in Manchester, Connecticut, where she brings her knowledge and love of peacemaking and mindfulness, to the world of Family Law.