The course content addresses the following topics:
- Alternative dispute resolution mechanisms with a particular focus on conciliation within a global context, the constitution, and relevant legislation
- Policy and jurisprudential developments in dispute resolution
- Defining dispute resolution, defining conciliation, and an overview of its various models
- Conciliation compared to facilitation, mediation, arbitration, and litigation
- Conciliation within a global context
- Conciliation, the constitution, and access to justice
- Conciliation and the legislative framework
- Distinguishing between conflicts and disputes
- Rights versus interests disputes, interest versus positions (getting to 'yes' negotiation skills)
- Ethics in conciliation (conflicts of interest, confidentiality, mediator liability)
- Social justice, diversity, and multiculturalism
- Conducting an effective conciliation process, closure of the process, drafting certificate and outcome reports, and drafting settlement agreements
- The role of a conciliator through simulated exercises by an experienced CCMA Commissioner