Essential Peace Skills Trainings

Essential Peace Skills Trainings Activity Summary

What are Essential Peace Skills Trainings?

Essential Peace Skills Trainings are Peace Through Action® USA’s series of intensive courses in core communication and conflict resolution skills. People can apply these skills to many challenges. That’s what makes them essential for each of us to know. If we don’t know them, we can’t use them when it would be good or necessary to do so.

What are these trainings on?

The Essential Peace Skills Trainings series will include modules on nine subjects: compassion, constructive communication, de-escalation, group dialogue, nonviolent self-defense, peace circles, peace education, prejudice reduction, and upstander intervention.

Modules on de-escalation and upstander intervention are ready to use today! We will release other modules one by one until we complete the series in summer 2026.

What happens at the trainings?

You will learn some communication and conflict resolution skills, practice them with other participants using realistic scenarios, and finally, share your experiences from the practices so that everyone can learn something from each other.

Essential Peace Skills sessions will run for about 90 minutes, including a stretch break. Don’t worry, you won’t be listening to one person speaking the entire time. We have designed the trainings so that you do things, not just hear things.

What’s supposed to result from these trainings?

We hope you will leave your session with more knowledge about constructive communication and conflict resolution than you had before the session. Also, we hope you will hold onto a few strategies, tricks, and tips you can pull out of your back pocket when you need a positive solution to a real-life communication or conflict challenge. We might even have sparked your curiosity to go deeper into the subject later.

Who are these trainings for?

Since we are teaching essential skills, these trainings are good for everyone.

However, these are introductory-level courses. If you are already skilled up on some of the subjects, choose training on another subject you don’t know as well or at all.

How do I take one of these trainings?

Here’s the thing. Peace Through Action is set up to equip everyday people to teach other everyday people, which is to say, our peers. There simply are not enough “subject experts” to “teach peace” and meet the obvious need in our country for more peaceful people.

So, that means the best way you can take one of these trainings is to volunteer to lead a session yourself!

An added benefit of leading a session is that you can decide who you want to get the training to, when the session fits your schedule, and where you will hold it.

If leading a session yourself is out of the question, how about asking a family member, friend, colleague, or peer to lead one. Or, find someone to pair up and lead a session together.

If you would like Peace Through Action to present this training virtually to your group, contact programs @ peacethroughaction.org.

I’m considering volunteering to lead a training. What support do you provide volunteers?

We’ve got you covered. For the training itself, we provide you with a script to follow, a PowerPoint presentation if you want to show it, and any materials participants will complete. Our resources are downloadable for printing, viewing on a device, or, in the case of forms, completing online or in print.

That’s not all.

We have an activity delivery guide and worksheet to help you plan and prepare your session.

For each training, we have sample messages and customizable graphics files to help you promote your session. Also, each training includes a brief video volunteers can watch to get more comfortable with the training agenda and key takeaways.

We will hop on a chat or call to provide one-to-one support. Simply ask for one by email to volunteering @ peacethroughaction.org.

I want to review the training resources before I decide to lead a session. Where can I find them?

Each Essential Peace Skills training has a webpage. The page includes the resources that participants will use during their session. That’s a good place for you to check out the content.

We reserve some of the training’s activity leader resources on a password-protected webpage. To see them, go ahead and complete this volunteer interest form. We will then give you access to the resources reserved for activity leaders.

I want to lead a training. How might I bring it to my community?

Since Essential Peace Skills trainings are a group activity, start with groups you’re already part of. For example, your workplace may provide in-service training to its employees. You could ask the training coordinator whether they might add your session to their training plan. If you belong to a faith congregation or civic group, they often have periods set aside for group learning. Ask if you can offer your session.

Another way to get your session into your community would be to contact your public library, adult education provider (often a community college), or private community or religious/contemplative organizations, and ask whether they would host and promote your session as one of their offerings.

Okay, I’m in. How do I sign up to lead a training?

First, go to the peace skills activity leader volunteer page to make sure you know what activity leaders do and our expectations of them.

Then, complete this volunteer interest form. We accept applications continuously.

A member of our team will contact you to take the next steps together.

I’m not ready to lead a training. I know someone who might. What should I do?

First, encourage them to do it! There’s nothing like being asked.

Second, send them to this very webpage. They can read the information and decide whether to volunteer.

Check in with them, not to hassle, but to continue to encourage them.

Leading an Essential Peace Skills training isn’t for me. What else can I do to increase peace in my relationships and communities?

Please visit our Do Something for Peace webpage and choose another of our actions.