CHERYL PICARD - Instructing Trainer and Advisor
Cheryl Picard is an educator, author, mediator and conflict specialist in interpersonal, workplace, restorative justice and community-based conflicts and the founder of Insight Mediation. Cheryl is advancing the use of insight mediation through her oversight of INSIGHTful Mediation Training, as Lead Instructing Trainer and Advisor. Her strengths lie in being a “pracademic”, which means she skillfully facilitates theoretically informed experiential, reflexive and adult learning.Cheryl retired from full-time academic life at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada to advance the “Insight approach to conflict and Insight mediation”, which she and Dr. Ken Melchin first articulated in 2001. She has been active locally, nationally and internationally for over four decades. She worked with the Coalition for the Protection of Children in Bermuda teaching mediation to professionals, and helped implement school peer mediation and conflict management curriculum programs country-wide. Her work with “Community Peacemakers” in San Fernando Trinidad, involved training a group of mediators in Insight mediation so they could offer free mediation services to community groups and individuals, while her collaboration with the Felix Varela Centre in Cuba furthered grass-root non-violent collaborative problem solving through the teaching of conflict resolution, mediation, and coaching skills to Cuban professionals and community leaders. She is past co-chair of the Advisory Council, School of Humanitarian Studies, Royal Roads University, Victoria, British Columbia, and an adjunct professor in the Applied Communication, Leadership and Culture program at the University of Prince Edward Island. Dr. Picard founded the Graduate Diploma in Conflict Resolution, the Centre for Conflict Education and Research, and the Mediation Centre at Carleton University. She has taught courses at Teachers College Columbia University; the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University; the Law University of Lithuania in Vilnius; Royal Roads University and the University of Winnipeg, and lectured at universities in England and New Zealand. In 2008, Cheryl was one of 50 women from across Canada recognized for long-standing peace work by the Department of Peace Initiative in cooperation with the Canadian Voice of Women for Peace and the Civilian Peace Service Canada. That same year she was recognized by Family Mediation Canada with the FAMMA Award for exceptional contributions to the field. She was nominated for the Ottawa YMCA-YWCA Women of Distinction award in the category of Education and Training in 2009, and served as an Ambassador for the Y Women of Distinction Award Committee. In 2016, she became the First Honorary Accredited Family Mediator by the Ontario Association for Family Mediation for valuable and distinguished services to the family mediation profession.
