conflict support

I hold a Master's in Dispute Resolution from Wayne State University, and technical training in mediation, restorative justice, and transformative justice. I have provided conflict facilitation and conflict education based in Conflict Transformation since 2018.

After working with organizations to facilitate conflict processes for many years, I have become passionate about supporting people in transforming the practices, policies, agreements, and infrastructure of their organizations to allow for generative conflict. It is my belief that facilitating individual conflicts, in the absence of a culture and practice of care, often serves to maintain power imbalances and destructive or exploitative dynamics - even when the participants genuinely serve a progressive or liberatory mission. In many ways, we are constrained by the culture and systems of white supremacy. Until we create new ways of relating in conflict, we will unintentionally uphold those practices.

Schedule a free exploratory call, by emailing luna@lunanh.com with your availability to meet for 30minutes over zoom.

Groups and organizations can work with me in consultation (advice, guidance, support) about the following:

Setting up anti-oppressive (non-criminalizing) conflict infrastructure (policies, procedures, processes) within your organization or community;
Navigating common interpersonal/relational conflicts within your organization/community and strategizing responses and interventions;
Designing a decision-making or conflict process that you want to facilitate internally;
Designing more collective, anti-oppressive meetings and events;
Building conflict skills within your group/organization;
Shifting power dynamics from hierarchical organizational systems toward collective ones.

Individuals and small groups can work with me in consultation about the following:

Mapping the dynamics of conflict;
Exploring strategies for changing an organization internally;
Counseling about how to navigate a persistent conflict in alignment with your values and integrity.

In consultation, I rely on my years of experience and learning to prompt discussion within the group, weigh options, and strategize about the best responses and opportunities for your group. If you'd like, I can create proposals with various options that you can present back to your group, or we can work on proposals together. Ultimately, you guide what we talk about and you make decisions about whether or not to take my advice or suggestions. I use Conflict Transformation principles to guide my advice, rather than judgment, and will share resources on transformative justice, anti-oppression, systemic power, power dynamics, and any other relevant topics that come up.

To start, email luna@lunanh.com with basic information about what you're looking for. We can set up a free intake to decide if we're a good match.

Sessions are $75 - $250 depending on your organization's ability to pay and the complexity of the work. A sliding scale will be provided and we will decide together what is possible within our shared capacities.

What you can expect

The process generally works like this:

Initial Intake: You reach out to me, we have a free 30 minute call or zoom where we discuss what's going on and how I can help. We can explore whether I'm a good fit and the sliding scale.
Initial session: If we're a good fit, during our first session we'll discuss your goals and how we can structure and plan our time to meet those goals in our following sessions. I might ask to see any current agreements, policies, organization charts, or other documents that will help me understand your group.
Following sessions: We'll spend as many sessions as you need working toward those goals. When you feel fully equipped to move on, we'll wrap up our time together by putting together some final strategies or resources you can take with you, if that's something you'd like to do.

Logistics:

Sessions are typically one or two hours depending on the number of people on the call (we want to ensure time for anyone to both think and share).
Sessions are entirely confidential.
We can meet weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly, virtually or in-person (SE Michigan only).
I charge a sliding scale from $75/hr - $250/hr for in-session time, this rate pays for the time I spend outside the session preparing, creating resources, reviewing documents.

What people often work with me on

Generative Conflict Infrastructure

Conflict Infrastructure refers to a set of dedicated and enacted policies, procedures, processes, resources, time, labor, emotional and social energy that is set up to address conflicts that arise within an organization and/or the social ecosystem that organization exists within, impacts, and is impacted by. Generative conflict infrastructure means creating culture and practices that are excited by disagreement and difference, curiously pursue how many seemingly divergent needs can be met, and use collective processes to ensure free expression, consent, and wellbeing are upheld while pursuing the mission and purpose of collective work. Generative conflict seeks to create the conditions we wish to see through liberatory work, in our engagement with each other.

Generative conflict infrastructure:

Sees all members (and those impacted) as equally important, while recognizing unique skills and perspectives that are key to solving problems;
- Does not demand or desire "sameness" or "obedience" and also,
- Does not pursue criticism, critique, or difference for its own sake.
Pursues mutual benefit, values alignment, and preservation of relationship, and also has clear boundaries to prioritize what is and is not "ours" to own or do;
Is firm in principles and also flexible and adaptive to the needs and will of the group;
Is responsive to concerns and also sustainable to allow for important efforts to continue despite adversity; and
Addresses harm through a transformative, compassionate (and non-carceral) perspective, while creating proportional consequences aligned with impact.

Examples of infrastructure

Small, internal: A small affinity group has a flexible agreement about how to address conflict related to what direct actions they engage in and to debrief after risky actions. They have a consensus decision-making model that will be facilitated by a neutral, trusted friend. They will self-facilitate healing circles after each event. If there are interpersonal conflicts, they have skilled up in non-violent communication skills and community mediation. They agree to prioritize care for each other as conflict arises.

Small, mixed: One academic department with three faculty and two staff develops a community agreement about addressing interpersonal conflict. In the process, they discover a need to address faculty-student conflicts when a group of disabled students shares that course plans are inaccessible. The department trains staff to facilitate fish bowl techniques that empower students to share their needs with faculty, and adds elements into the agreement that encourage the department to strive to creatively meet student needs and prevent harm.

Medium, internal: a growing 25-person climate organization has been struggling with cliques/factions. In response, they restructure to give people of different tactical preferences autonomy, while drafting guidelines about which types of action require whole-group consensus. A small group skills up in anti-oppressive facilitation and will use a few different types of process to handle interpersonal, small group, and whole group discussion and decision-making when differences arise.

Medium, mixed: A mutual aid organization has several members who have experienced racial and gender-based violence by local people and institutions. To address harm, they establish a community accountability system that supports anyone who has experienced similar harms (within their capacity) and develops both short-term accountability and long-term transformation plans.

Large, internal: To address cultural diversity among members, a 1,000+ member labor union has each trade/specialty craft a letter that lets others in the organization know their values, how they like to be treated, and how they want to handle conflicts when their interests don't align. Using these letters, the organization develops a system to receive requests for conflict assistance, assign complaints to facilitators, and facilitate mediations between members and between trades.

Large, mixed: A community center's staff have requested a feedback system that informs the board of directors. They develop a set of policies that the board must follow in responding to feedback, and a system for staff and community members to submit feedback. To address feedback that involves harm by the center or within the neighborhood, they contract with healing justice and restorative justice facilitators who can design and facilitate conflict processes toward understanding, healing, and solving problems.

Crisis Response*

After an unexpected crisis (a one-time incident of violence, significant funding change, staff loss, or mandated priority shift), people often want to talk to me about a few aspects of their next steps:

How to listen and understand the impact this change/incident has on people within an organization and/or the surrounding community.
How to take that information/input/experience to generate either a collective decision-making process or authentically incorporate it into next steps.
How to communicate authentically and transparently to people impacted by this crisis.

*I have specific training in crisis communication and crisis planning from my Master's.

Designing a problem-solving process

For organizations who have skilled facilitators already, they may just need help designing the steps for a decision-making or problem-solving process that is more complex than they are used to. Sometimes it's helpful to simply run questions by someone who isn't deep into the issues and concerns that the organization is going through.