In this Newsletter:

• Welcome from CCCO - Thank you for being here.

Upcoming Classes:
• 6-Week Practice Group Starts May 2nd: Staying Connected and Compassionate in Today’s Challenging Times with Zach Yocum
• Starts May 6th: Let’s Talk Parenting: An 8-Week Jumpstart to Calmer, More Connected Family Life with Elke Haggerty
• June 6th & 7th, 3 hours daily: Foundations of Compassionate Communication: Family Focus with Elke Haggerty

CCCO Free Offerings:
• Empathy Calls - Monday, Wednesday, Fridays at Noon!
• Intro to NVC - May 10th, Special Mother’s Day Focus! Attend with your mom or adult kid!

Resource:
• 5-minute Video from NVC Academy: How do you navigate uncertainty? A guide to decision making in complex times with Miki Kashtan

Welcome from CCCO

Welcome! No matter where you are on your Nonviolent Communication journey - whether brand-new or much more experienced - we hope our trainers can support you. CCCO is a hub of qualified NVC trainers, who each have their own unique approach to sharing this work. We hope the multiplicity of approaches will support you in finding and developing your own personal NVC practice.

Through CCCO, our trainers rotate offering quarterly Foundations of Compassionate Communication classes - 6 hour courses that give you the basics to begin your own practice (or refresher!); Practice Groups, 4 to 12 week meetings in community to practice your NVC skills, often with a particular angle or focus; and occasional Professional Development. We host regular Free Offerings, including 3x-Weekly Empathy Calls and a monthly 90-minute Intro to NVC. And, we also offer NVC resources through our newsletter to support your self-study and practice. We want NVC to be accessible to all, and are pleased to offer tiered pricing and financial support for these programs.

CCCO is proud to share our trainers’ other offerings, so that if you desire, you can continue your study directly with them. We also share our trainers’ wider NVC work - from prisons to neighborhoods to summer camps - as well as their writings and experiences with NVC, so you can get to them and how NVC lives in our region.

CCCO aims to serve YOU in your NVC journey, support our trainers in sharing NVC, and widen the community of those living and sharing NVC.

Upcoming Practice Group

Staying Connected and Compassionate in Today’s Challenging Times (online)
Saturdays, May 2 - June 6
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM EST

We are pleased to offer our tiered pricing to make this offering accessible, as well as opportunities for scholarships. Please click the registration link to learn more.

How do we stay self-connected when one event or headline has the potential to disrupt our well being, when political beliefs impact our family or relationships, when differing opinions about world events obscure our ability to see the humanity in others?

This practice group will focus on bringing the processes of NVC into difficult situations by working with self connection, empathy, practicing how to receive hard-to-hear messages and also sharing our heartfelt truth even when it’s challenging to do so.

Participants will work on skills for building capacity and will have the opportunity to work with real situations through guided role plays, which can include simulated conversations around political or ideological differences. This is geared toward participants who have some NVC experience, either having participated in a practice group, attended an NVC Foundations training, or the equivalent.

Trainer: Zach Yocum

Zach attended his first trainings with Marshall Rosenberg nearly 20 years ago. Continuing to study Nonviolent Communication under a variety of trainers, Zach has been teaching and facilitating workshops and practice groups since 2017. Zach strives to share processes that have been deeply impactful in his own life, and to offer skills with real life applicability.

IMAGE: Maria Fabrizio for National Public Radio

REGISTER HERE

Foundations of Compassionate Communication: Family Focus
a six-hour training with Elke Haggerty

June 6th & 7th, 10 am - 1pm EST (online)

CCCO offers quarterly Foundations training for newcomers and the experienced alike to learn (or refresh) the essential principles and skills of NVC. Our Summer quarter’s class will be taught by Elke Haggerty, with a focus on parenting and family.

With parenting examples and active practice, you’ll learn a way to:

De-escalate tension instead of triggering more
Understand what you need so you can respond instead of reacting
Ask for support without making demands that lead to resistance
Unpack what’s motivating your kids so they feel heard and you feel calmer

Register Here

Trainer Offerings

Let’s Talk Parenting: An 8-Week Jumpstart to Calmer, More Connected Family Life

Wednesdays, May 6 through June 24, 2026,
11 am – 1 pm MT (1 PM - 3 PM EST)
(16 Hours, Online)

with Elke Haggerty, LL.M., MBA
CNVC Certified Trainer & CALF Certified NVC Trainer

In this 8-week course, explore a peaceful, connecting way to talk with your kids about chores, homework, their social life, and what matters to you and, along the way, build a stronger, closer family that can have more fun together. Also open to grandparents and teachers.

Imagine family conversations that stay calm, where your kids actually stay engaged, and where you feel confident navigating tough moments without arguing, bribing, or threatening. Imagine recurring struggles—homework battles, chores, sibling conflict—finally softening so you can enjoy your family more and feel at peace in your home. If you want a kinder, clearer, and more effective way to parent in any situation, Let’s Talk Parenting will show you a way.

Over an 8-week period, you’ll practice a communication approach rooted in clarity, empathy, and genuine connection. You’ll discover a way to:

Replace disconnecting language with words that keep conversations open
Distinguish observations from interpretations so your kids listen rather than defend
Express your needs clearly and expand the number of solutions available to your family
Identify feelings with greater accuracy while avoiding “feeling-like” words that spark conflict
Create breakthroughs by grounding each interaction in the intention to connect
Self-empathize so you can parent from steadiness instead of overwhelm
Listen with empathy to reduce tension and increase understanding
Make clear, doable requests that set your family up for cooperation and success

These are tools you can use every day—with toddlers, teens, partners, and anyone in your life.

READ MORE HERE

REGISTER HERE

Free CCCO Offerings

REGISTER HERE

FREE INTRO to NVC: Speak Peace with Compassionate Communication

Every 2nd Sunday of the Month
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM EST
Online

Next Session: Sunday, May 10th.
Special Mother’s Day Focus! Attend with your mom or adult kid!

REGISTER HERE

RESOURCES

From NVC Academy: A 5-minute video from Miki Kashtan

How do you navigate uncertainty?
A guide to decision making in complex times.

To Learn more about Miki: https://mikikashtan.org/
To Learn more about NVC Academy: https://nvcacademy.com/

Note: Miki Kashtan is not an affiliated trainer with CCCO. We share her words as a resource.

Click here to see more of our offerings.

Click here to see our free offerings.

Click here to learn more about our trainers.

In our work to make NVC more accessible, each of our offerings has three different pricing options: subsidized, sustaining, and supportive to others. We encourage you to pay at the level that feels right for you.

We hope this newsletter brings you a sense of value, as we share resources and offer programming that we hope meets you where you are in learning and practicing NVC. We hope it provides a sense of community with others on this journey, and are eager to hear how you want to engage and what you need. Please feel free to reach out anytime to info@speakingpeace.org with comments, questions, concerns and suggestions.