November 14, 2024 (4:00-5:30 pm)
December 12, 2024 (4:00-5:30 pm)
January 9, 2025 (4:00-5:30 pm)

Keep your cool when the heat is on! So much of our job success depends on the strength of our communication. This course will increase our communication skill set and help navigate the tricky conversations that are guaranteed to come our way. Together, we  will explore practical strategies to ensure you remain calm when things get heated, and help others catch that calm from you as you work towards resolution. We will apply communication strategies to de-escalate and diffuse potentially explosive situations, as well as discuss ways to avoid escalation in the first place. Additionally, we share a number of practical and immediately applicable strategies to build and repair connection in these increasingly divisive times. Learn strategies and tools today that you can use tomorrow!

• Enter into difficult conversations with increased skill and confidence
• Learn practical ways to remain calm when things get heated - and help others catch your calm
• Explore tools to defuse potentially explosive situations, and how to avoid escalation in the first place
• Leave with immediately applicable strategies to build and repair connection in these increasingly divisive times

Presented by:
     

Erika Bare has been an educator for over 20 years, currently serving as the Superintendent in the South Umpqua School District in Oregon. She began her career as a special educator serving students pre-k through 21 before becoming a building administrator at both the high school and elementary level. She then expanded her impact as the director of special education & assistant superintendent before moving into her current position as Superintendent in the South Umpqua School District. She is passionate about supporting all students through individual supports to reach their unlimited potential.

Tiffany Burns loves working with kids. In her two decades in education, she taught elementary, middle, high school, and university students. She has been an administrator since 2012 and an elementary school principal for the past nine years. This year, Tiffany is on a professional sabbatical and returning to her teaching roots as a faculty instructor in the Education Department at Southern Oregon University. She is also thrilled to have more time to dedicate to growing the Connected Communicator Movement and helping educators across the nation gain skills to transform behavior and build a culture of connection in their educational communities.

Together they wrote Connecting Through Conversation: A Playbook for Talking with Students