{"id":97438,"date":"2024-06-13T16:26:20","date_gmt":"2024-06-13T22:26:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.boisestate.edu\/sps\/?p=97438"},"modified":"2025-05-13T14:41:57","modified_gmt":"2025-05-13T20:41:57","slug":"how-conflict-support-services-helps-boise-state-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.boisestate.edu\/sps\/blog\/2024\/06\/how-conflict-support-services-helps-boise-state-students\/","title":{"rendered":"How Conflict Support Services helps Boise State students"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignleft size-medium wp-image-97439\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" src=\"https:\/\/www.boisestate.edu\/sps\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/137\/2024\/06\/image-1-300x200.png\" alt=\"Andy Giacomazzi, Ashley Nichols, President Marlene Tromp and Kristin Olson\" class=\"wp-image-97439\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Andy Giacomazzi, Ashley Nichols, President Marlene Tromp and Kristin Olson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">When Boise State students face conflicts with their friends, roommates, classmates or other peers, how do they resolve them? What resources exist on campus to address the complex issues that arise in living and working with other people? Conflict Support Services is a program that teaches and engages students in healthy conflict management strategies, and this year the founders, Kristin Olson, Ashley Nichols and Andy Giacomazzi, were recognized with the 2024 President\u2019s Innovation award.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 2019, Boise State\u2019s Housing and Residence Life director approached Kristin Olson, Assistant Director of Academic Initiatives, with a problem \u2013 students at Boise State were reporting very low for conflict resolution skills on the Housing and Residence Life annual survey. Olson, with 8 prior years of experience as the University of Denver\u2019s Director of Student Conduct, began hatching a plan to address this issue. She spoke with School of Public Service Senior Associate Dean Andy Giacomazzi, who connected her with SPS professor and Director of the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.boisestate.edu\/sps-conflict\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Conflict Management Certificate Program<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Ashley Nichols. From this partnership was born the Conflict Management Resource Center, now known as Conflict Support Services.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Conflict Support Services is nearly entirely run by a team of students called the Peer Mediators (PMs). These students come into the role with some prior experience in conflict management and are able to apply their knowledge, as well as skills learned in their summer training, to assist other students on campus.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Olson shared an overview of the services offered through CSS: \u201cWe offer mediation, conflict coaching, facilitated conversations, we can help with student groups, we can come in and do team norms conversations\u2026we do initial roommate agreements, and then we also help to update roommate agreements.\u201d&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The PMs also assist with creating and facilitating conflict management training for a number of on campus groups, including student leaders (RAs) in Housing and Residence life, professional staff members and, more recently, off-campus groups such as camp counselors.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">&#8220;The Peer Mediator role has allowed me to grow in both my personal and professional life,\u201d said Corinne Smearden, \u201cI have learned so much about how I can better handle conflict in my own life and healthy ways to approach it. I can better assist those in my life with navigating their conflicts and feel confident in my ability to do so.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignright size-medium wp-image-97440\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" src=\"https:\/\/www.boisestate.edu\/sps\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/137\/2024\/06\/IMG_3012-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"Peer Mediators and Kristin Olson discuss their research. \" class=\"wp-image-97440\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Peer Mediators and Kristin Olson at the SPS Research and Experiential Learning Showcase, March 2024<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Conflict Support Services is growing and looking for new ways to connect with students on and off campus. Recently, they opened up the opportunity for PMs like Corinne to advance to a Peer Mediator Mentor role where they assist and train new PMs.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Since its birth, Conflict Support Services has grown quickly, and the team looks forward to serving a greater student population year after year.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cIt started as a pilot, we weren\u2019t sure if students would use us,\u201d Olson said, \u201cit went from helping 35 students that first year to 307 students that we worked with this year.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Olson shared that the survey results in response to this program have been overwhelmingly positive. \u201cWhat we\u2019re seeing on the survey is that they felt listened to, they felt heard, they feel as though they have a place to go to.\u201d <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Read more about Conflict Support Services, the Peer Mediator program and more on the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.boisestate.edu\/conflictsupportservices\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Conflict Support Services website.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By Lainey Rehkemper<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When Boise State students face conflicts with their friends, roommates, classmates or other peers, how&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2441,"featured_media":97439,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[582,1522,622],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-conflict-management","category-sps-news","category-sps-students"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v28.2 (Yoast SEO v28.2) - 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