23.06.2016
2016 ARAG School Mediation Conference in Düsseldorf
“Intercultural Conflict Management & Mediation” for schools in North Rhine-Westphalia
The effective integration of young people who have fled from regions affected by crises and wars is an important social-policy objective. Schools bear the heaviest burden when it comes to integration. Within the context of the 2016 ARAG School Mediation Conference, the ARAG Group is offering specific knowledge regarding all aspects of intercultural conflict management to graduates of and future participants in the ARAG program devoted to promoting “Conflict Management at Schools.” Participants from 50 vocational schools and other secondary schools in the entire state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) are attending the conference in the ARAG Tower in Düsseldorf.
2016 ARAG School Mediation Conference
The “ARAG Fachschultag 2016” (2016 ARAG School Mediation Conference) takes place in the ARAG Tower in Düsseldorf on 23 June 2016. Sylvia Löhrmann, Minister of Schools and Education in NRW, will be in attendance. Conference participants, most of whom are school principals, teachers and school social workers from various types of schools in North Rhine-Westphalia, are invited to take part in one of ten workshops on the subject of “Intercultural Conflict Management & Mediation.”
The Düsseldorf insurance Group developed the “Conflict Management at Schools” program, which has been running with success in North Rhine-Westphalia since March 2014. The fourth training course will begin in late September 2016. Teachers, parents, school psychologists and school social workers are trained as school mediators in this project, and they will train students as conflict-management guides after completing the program. “We need a new element of social competence in our professional work, namely intercultural competence,” emphasized Minister Sylvia Löhrmann in her welcoming address to participants.
Within the framework of the 2016 “ARAG School Mediation Conference,” at which certified and prospective school mediators are meeting and undergoing further training, numerous local government agencies and educational institutions will be presenting their programs, including
- Düsseldorf Center for School Psychology (Zentrum für Schulpsychologie der Landeshauptstadt Düsseldorf)
- Duisburg School of Psychology Consultancy (schulpsychologische Beratungsstelle der Stadt Duisburg)
- Düsseldorf Caritas Association (Caritasverband Düsseldorf e.V.)
- AWO Düsseldorf Youth Counselling Office (Jugendberatungsstelle der AWO Düsseldorf)
- School Violence and Cyber-Violence Prevention Center of NRW (Landespräventionsstelle gegen Gewalt und Cybergewalt an Schulen in NRW)
- NRW Teachers with Migration History (Lehrer mit Zuwanderungsgeschichte des Landes NRW)
- Düsseldorf Center for Integration and Education (Kommunalstelle für Integration und Bildung der Landeshauptstadt Düsseldorf)
A workshop is also being offered by the Cologne-based NRW branch of the German Children and Youth Foundation (Deutsche Kinder- und Jugendstiftung Regionalstelle NRW Köln), a partner to ARAG SE in the field of digital education for the past three years.
The guest of honor is Johan V. Galtung, the Norwegian-born founder of the discipline of peace and conflict studies, who was awarded the “Alternative Nobel Prize“ (the Right Livelihood Award) for his research on peace in 1987.
In the words of Dr. Paul-Otto Faßbender, Chairman and CEO of ARAG SE, “The effective integration of young refugees into our day-to-day school life is an important future objective, and one that ARAG supports wholeheartedly. Intercultural competence is a central focus of the 2016 “ARAG School Mediation Conference.”