JENNIFER SUZOR - Lead Trainer
Jennifer Suzor has decades of experience as an Accredited Family, Child Protection and Intergenerational Mediator, and is an experienced Mediation Trainer based in Windsor, Ontario. Having practiced family law at all levels of the Court from 1988 to 2021, she experienced first hand how difficult that system can be for families. She now focuses only on mediation. She is committed to training family mediators and is a frequent speaker at conferences. As the co-developer of Insightful Mediation Training, soon to be renamed INSIGHTful Mediation Training, she has trained throughout Canada and now, via the online platform made available due to the pandemic, for many individuals across the country. Previously, Jennifer also helped to develop the Advanced Mediation Course at York University.
People who have taken this training consistently rate Jennifer’s training ability at 100% effective in what she does. Many have commented that the experience of training was “life changing”.
Jennifer served as the President of the Ontario Association for Family Mediation (OAFM) from 2013 to 2018 and continued to contribute to the important work of that organization through to 2021 by assisting with the development of policies. She continues to work on the www.familypeacemakers.ca conference committe, something she was part of beginning during her Presidency at OAFM. Jennifer is also on the Board of Directors for Windsor Life Centre, a Woman’s Addiction Treatment Centre and the Past-President of the Autism Society of Ontario (Windsor) and the Summit Centre for Preschoolers with Autism.
in 2016, Jennifer received the President’s Award from the Association for Family and Conciliation Courts, Ontario Chapter, in recognition of her volunteer work as Co-Chair of the Walsh Family Negotiation Competition and her vision of creating a series of events in Windsor called “Changing the Culture of Conflict Resolution in Family Breakdown Roundtable Dinner Series” for the Judiciary, Counsel, Psychologists, Social Workers and others who work with family breakdown in Windsor. She is the President of Bridging Family Conflict, the service provider in Windsor for the Ministry of Attorney General subsidized mediation and information services. She mediates there, in her private practice at www.suzormediation.com and is the lead trainer here.
Jennifer can be reached at jennifer@suzormediation.com or at 519-252-2772.
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.
Elizabeth Sterritt
Elizabeth is a mediator, coach and collaborative professional as well as an Insight practitioner who brings a great deal of experience to the field of mediation, coaching and training. Her work has given her a consummate understanding of the importance of the role of relationships. An Accredited Family Mediator and Elder Mediator, Elizabeth focuses on family conflict, with a special interest in intergenerational conflict and Elder Mediation. Elizabeth leads the Accredited Elder Mediation training provided by the Ontario Association for Family Mediation. Elizabeth is a Board member of the OAFM as well as the Chair of the Elder Mediation Committee. She is also past-president of OAFM (Ottawa) and a member of the Collaborative Family Law Network in Ottawa, where she offers communications coaching as a neutral collaborative professional. Most recently Elizabeth has continued her study of the Insight approach to conflict and is a member of the Committee organizing international conferences on Insight. Elizabeth’s particular focus will be on teaching the Insight approach to mediation.
Krista Konrad
Krista Konrad is very experienced working with individuals, couples and families. She earned her Master of Social Worker degree from Wilfrid Laurier University in 1999 and is also an Accredited Family Mediator with the Ontario Association of Family Mediators. She has years of experience as a child protection worker and counsellor where she worked with families and children with complex issues including domestic violence, abuse, parent/child conflict, separation/divorce, addictions and mental health issues. Krista has been pioneering the use of Child Inclusive Mediation and New Ways for Families programs within mediation and has provided training and coaching for INSIGHTful Mediation Training for many years.
Cynthia Nantais
Cynthia Nantais graduated from Windsor Law in 1998 and earned a Master of Laws (Family Law) from Osgoode Hall in 2014. Cindy left private practice to raise her children. For more than a decade, she has been a sessional instructor in Family Law at the University of Windsor.
Now an Accredited Family Mediator, she is leading the teaching of family law for INSIGHTful Mediation Training. Cindy became a mediator to help families in conflict resolve issues in a productive and meaningful way.
DAN ASHBOURNE
DAN ASHBOURNE, Executive Director, Centre for Children and Families in the Justice system. Dan Ashbourne leads the renowned Centre for Children and Families in the Justice System based on London, Ontario, and through the LFCC and ADR-Link, has been on the forefront of bringing family mediation services to the most vulnerable in our society. Dan will share his extensive knowledge about the use of social science to inform parenting mediation, including research on the developmental stages of children, younger children and shared parenting, and the “voice” of children in family mediation.
DR. LYNDA ASHBOURNE
Dr. Lynda McTavish Ashbourne, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Dept. of Family Relations & Applied Nutrition (Couple & Family Therapy) at the University of Guelph, in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. She teaches theory, research, and practicum courses in the Couple & Family Therapy Masters of Science program. She conducts research in the area of family relationships and couple & family therapy training practices.
Dr. Ashbourne’s research has included investigating, together with non-immigrant and immigrant populations, the challenges of parent-adolescent relationships – more specifically negotiating time and space together and apart, as well as intergenerational storytelling.
JARED NORTON
Jared completed his Master of Social Work Degree at the University of Toronto with a specialization in Child, Youth, and Families. He holds certificates in Alternative Dispute Resolution and Advanced Family Mediation, and has specialized training in therapeutic interventions and addictions work, including process addictions such as problem gambling and gaming. Jared is a private practice clinician with extensive experience working in the field of high conflict separation and divorce. Beyond his clinical practice he serves on the clinical panel with the Office of the Children’s Lawyer, and provides court connected family mediation with Mediate393. He is also a speaker and trainer on the topics of family and individual mental health, and has taught domestically and internationally on the topics of mediation and parenting coordination.
Jared is a former associate at Riverdale Mediation, and has practiced at the Center for Addiction and Mental Health, Frontenac Youth Services, and the Distress Centre of Toronto. He has conducted Section 34 YCJA assessments for youth in conflict with the law, and has also conducted assessment for The Arson Prevention Program for Children (TAPP-C).
MATTHEW KROFCHICK
Matthew Krofchick is a Chartered Business Valuator (CBV) and a Valuations Manager at Krofchick Valuations in Toronto. Matthew specializes in forensic accounting including income determination and business valuations for matrimonial purposes. His work includes complex tracing analysis, income determination for child and spousal support calculations, pension valuations, and business valuations. He has led a team of valuation and forensic specialists in numerous valuation and investigative assignments in many diverse industries.
In addition to holding the designation of CBV, Matthew is also a Certified Management Accountant (CMA), Chartered Professional Account (CPA), Certified Management Consultant (CMC), Certified in Financial Forensics (CFF), and is collaboratively trained. Matthew also sits on the board of the Family Dispute Resolution Institute of Ontario (FDRIO).
Kelley McKeating
Kelley is a graduate of the University of Waterloo and has been a fully-qualified actuary since 1995. She is a Fellow of both the Canadian Institute of Actuaries and of the Society of Actuaries. From 2011 to 2015, she was Chair of the Committee on Actuarial Evidence of the Canadian Institute of Actuaries. She currently chairs the Designated Group that is responsible for reviewing and recommending changes to the Canadian Institute of Actuaries’ Standards of Practice for Actuarial Evidence. In 2020 and 2021, Kelley served on FSRA’s Technical Advisory Committee for Family Law Pension Matters.
Kelley spent most of her early career specializing in pensions and employee benefits. In 2005, she began to work in the field of expert actuarial evidence. She has prepared more than 3,900 reports to date and has testified as an expert in Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland & Labrador.
In the context of family law, she assists clients by providing marriage breakdown pension valuations, lump-sum support determinations, “Boston” calculations, and by helping to draft the pension-related sections of separation agreements.
