In 2018 we launched the Bleiweis Community Education Initiative in honor of longtime conflict resolution practitioner and member of the NVMS community, Marge Bleiweis. For decades Marge served families and individuals in Northern Virginia teaching about tools to prevent and resolve conflict.
The BCEI aims to bring everyday conflict resolution skills to people in the region with three objectives:
- Increase skills of community groups in Northern Virginia to constructively address conflict.
- Prevent escalation of future community disputes through strengthened conflict competency.
- Make conflict management training available to members of the Northern Virginia Community at no-cost to beneficiaries.
We build partnerships with local organizations who are serving community groups and we support their conflict resolution needs. We aim to meet communities where they’re at. To do this, we design trainings and workshops tailored to the needs of individual communities. Some of the groups we have partnered with include:
- The Lamb Center
- SafeSpace NoVA
- I.M.A.M.
- Fairfax County Neighborhood and Community Services
- Fairfax County Council PTA
We aim to develop sustainable programs with our partners through the BCEI: delivering ongoing conflict resolution workshops to members of their communities.