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“You can’t shake hands with a clenched fist.”

Indira Gandhi

General Resources

Mediate.com - This website lists mediators throughout the United States, and contains a lot of information on the mediation process.

Collaborative Practice East Bay - An interdisciplinary group of local Collaborative professionals which promotes group training, meeting, and socializing to better meet their clients' and communities' needs.

Collaborative Practice San Francisco- Another interdisciplinary group of local Collaborative professionals which promotes group training, meeting, and socializing to better meet their clients' and communities' needs.

Collaborative Practice California - The Collaborative Practice movement in California is organized and active. Their website is full of information on CP, including why people choose CP and why people have professional assistance beyond the usual lawyers. There is also a list of books that offer ways to effectively approach negotiating your own divorce.

IACP - The International Academy of Collaborative Professionals' website is a collection of information on CP in general and the growth of the process as a world-wide movement. Their website is full of information for anyone considering a non-adversarial divorce.

Fellow Professionals

Sharon Ellison - Powerful Non-defensive Communication. Sharon Ellison has adroitly deconstructed modern communication patterns and created a lucid, simple framework to help people change their communication into clear, heartfelt, and non-threatening statements - a framework that anyone can learn. Her book is the antithesis of many in this genre that rely on New Age-y aphorisms. Instead, Ms. Ellison gives people a new way to see common communication patterns; allowing people to change their perception of how the world currently operates, and to be fully responsible for their relationships and reactions to others. Her teachings have greatly enhanced Unmani's mediation practice and life.

Chip Rose, JD - Mediation Center of Santa Cruz. Chip Rose has taken the time and care to articulate the exact techniques which make him an exceptional mediator, and has worked tirelessly to pass them on through his writings and trainings. He has also been active in contributing his invaluable mediator's perspective to the Collaborative Practice movement. Unmani's mediation practice is modeled after his teachings, and one of her professional goals is to serve her clients with some of the grace, wit, and compassion that he demonstrates with his methods.

Susan Pease is the director of The Transition Institute of Marin, which specializes in supporting and educating women through the divorce experience; Ms. Pease teaches workshops and works with individual clients. Focusing on women's needs during the divorce transition, Ms. Pease empowers her clients to focus on creating a lasting foundation for a positive future through the divorce process.

Steve Popell has been doing business valuations for Bay Area clients for 30 years. Steve has worked hard to promote neutral valuations, saving clients the high expense and anxiety generated by competing valuations; in this spirit, Mr. Popell has been active in the Collaborative Practice movement for many years.

Karen Douglas, is the Senior Vice President of Stone Castle Land and Home Financial in Danville.  Ms. Douglas specializes in providing mortgages structured for divorcing owners to acheive the goal of one person retaining ownership of the home (a buy-out) and all other mortgage needs.

Nancy Cameron is a mediator and Collaborative Practice attorney in Canada where she both practices and teaches. Her book is designed for professionals, but is well-written and interesting. She gives sound advice to people considering mediation or Collaborative Practice on how to best choose a professional to work with.

Family Resources

Kids' Turn - a Bay Area nonprofit organization that helps guide families-- both parents and children-- through restructuring during or after divorce or parental separation.

Up To Parents - a free, confidential, and interactive website for divorcing and divorced parents.

Our Family Wizard - a site to communicate, organize and manage all of your family information, messages, journals, expenses, parenting time calendars, and schedules to faciliate coparenting.

Co-Parent Successfully - another free, confidential, and interactive website for divorcing and divorced parents.