What are the Various Program Options?

There are a variety of recovery programs and options. In each program, the three-tiered "team" approach is used during 24 weeks of mediation, mental health counseling and spiritual advice. (However, in the Workplace Recovery Program, the length of the program varies and individual mediation and counseling are only required by the participants in an active employment dispute.)

• The Joint Marriage Recovery Program is available when both spouses seek to heal their differences or to find a saner approach to problem solving than litigation.
• The Individual Marriage Recovery Program is available when one spouse is willing to try to save the marriage but the other spouse is unwilling to enter a joint program. The individual program helps the spouse to learn new responses and creative problem-solving techniques, while seeking a personal transformation.
• The Family Recovery Program is available to parents and children who seek to learn conflict resolution skills or who are involved in an ongoing dispute that requires resolution. Often these are families recovering from divorce or boarding on divorce. The entire family must participate in the program although there will be some separate sessions.
• The Teen Recovery Program is available to a teenager who needs to learn conflict resolution skills or who are involved in an ongoing dispute that requires resolution. Often these teens are also recovering from an addiction, or who have had trouble with the law, or has been expelled from school, or has had disruptive conduct that has led to general family dissension and conflict. The entire family must participate in the recovery program although there are many individual sessions only with the teen.
• The Adult Recovery Program is available to adult children or single adult individuals who seek to learn conflict resolution skills or who are involved in an ongoing dispute that requires resolution. Often these are adults who are recovering from divorce, physical assault, homosexual activity, drug addiction, or who have had trouble with the law, leading to conflict within a family, or a particular Diocese or group.
• The Child-Abuse Recovery Program is available to families or adult individuals who seek to learn conflict resolution skills or who are involved in an ongoing dispute that requires resolution. (Note: All mediators are required by law in certain states to report cases of active child abuse.)
• The Workplace Recovery Program is available to businesses and companies who seek to learn conflict resolution skills or who are involved in ongoing employment disputes that require resolution. Often these are enterprises that seek to promote dispute resolution techniques before an employment dispute arises.
• The Diocesan Recovery Program is available to priests, religious, clergy, as well as to mental health and pastoral counselors, and any other employees or volunteers within the church family. This program has multiple dimensions ranging from the personal recovery of individuals caught up in alcoholism or illicit sexual relations, to group education of religious or staffers who need to utilize faith-based mediation skills in counseling or guidance settings. Individual recovery programs require a minimum of six to twelve months with a minimum of weekly sessions. The transformative mediation process includes learning how to deal with both inner conflict resolution, conflict with unseen fears and past demons, and conflict resolution within the pastoral community. Group training programs are vastly different from programs of individual recovery. Group training is designed to meet the needs of the group members who seek to help others. At a minimum this group training requires two full eight-hour days of seminar and active participation so that the tenets and principles of faith-based transformative mediation can be transferred to pastoral advice and counseling. More intensive training can be conducted in five days of eight hour sessions. These sessions are specifically designed to meet the continuing education unit requirements of the particular Diocese and convey the relationship of mediation principles and natural law precepts with Church teaching.

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