January 22-24; 29-31; and February 5-7, 2027

Longing for a deeper experience of Nonviolent Communication?

Perhaps you've discovered NVC and know there's something profoundly life-changing about it. You long not just to understand it intellectually, but to live it—to bring more self-compassion into your inner world, more honesty and connection into your relationships, and more collaboration and care into your communities.

Maybe you've dreamed of attending an in-person NVC intensive, but they're too far away, the travel and accommodation are beyond your budget, or your work or family responsibilities make it difficult to be away for so many consecutive days.

In a world where many people are feeling overwhelmed, divided, or discouraged, you may also be longing for something else: hope. A place where people come together with openness, authenticity, and a shared commitment to caring for one another and for life.

That's why we've created this online retreat.

Our intention is to offer an experience that is every bit as rich, warm, and transformative as an in-person retreat—while allowing you to participate from the comfort of your own home and without putting your life on hold.

Whether you're just beginning your NVC journey, have been practicing for years, or are already sharing NVC with others, you'll find a place here. Through experiential learning, small-group practice, reflection, and genuine human connection, you'll deepen not only your understanding of NVC, but your capacity to embody it in everyday life.

We would love to welcome you.

Details:

The retreat will be held in English, and the schedule has been designed for participants across the Americas. (If you're in Europe or Africa, we'll soon be offering a retreat designed for your time zone.)

9 days of training
Held over the course of 3 consecutive weekends (Jan 22-24, Jan 29-31, Feb 5-7)
100% online
Multiple sessions to choose from each day
Opportunities for practice in small groups
Opening and Closing circles each day
Hang out or request/offer empathy in the Community Room
Recordings of trainer sessions will be available to participants after the event (breakout room exercises are not recorded)
Opportunity for participant-led workshops in the evening sessions (reach out for more information)
Breaks structured throughout for meals, to stretch and move, and to balance screen time
Tiered Pricing for Accessibility!

Meet the Trainers

Meet the CNVC-certified trainers and assessors from across the Americas.

Kathleen Macferran

Kathleen Macferran is an author, facilitator, Certified Trainer and Assessor Emeritus for the Center for Nonviolent Communication. She travels internationally working with individuals, families, community groups, businesses, schools, and incarcerated populations.

Kathleen holds a vision for a peaceful, just, and sustainable world. She is committed to co-creating a world where peace replaces violence, love replaces hate, equity replaces inequity, and all people live meaningful lives. She has worked as a Certified Trainer for the Center for Nonviolent Communication (CNVC) since 2003, and as a CNVC Assessor for 13 years. For 20 years she served as a workshop facilitator for the Freedom Project of Seattle, WA, an organization that supports healing and restoration inside and outside prisons through Nonviolent Communication, mindfulness, racial equity and anti-oppression.

In an increasingly polarized world, Kathleen believes practical dialogue skills are learnable and essential to reach across the gaps that divide us. Kathleen offers these skills internationally through workshop and meeting facilitation; reimagining and redesigning social systems; and conflict transformation using practical skills that lead to reconciliation with ourselves, our loved ones, and our communities. She has worked with individuals, community groups, businesses, schools, colleges, faith-based communities, hospitals, families, incarcerated individuals, and correctional and law enforcement employees. Kathleen co-facilitates trainings with her husband Rev. Dr. Bob Salt on topics such as healthy sexuality across the lifespan, spirituality and multicultural awareness.

Kathleen is the author of Calling In the Dawn: Shaping Our Future through Authentic Dialogue, and co-author with Jared Finkelstein of Choice: A Field Guide for Navigating the Polarization of Our World and Living Interdependently. She has also created a children’s book Trilogy (How Giraffes Found Their Hearts, How Giraffes Got Their Ears, and How Giraffes Learned to Talk Bravely), and musical CD Giraffe Tales. She has presented multiple times at TedX.

CNVC Certified Trainer and Assessor Emeritus

Organizers:

Zach Yocum

Peggy Smith

CNVC Certified Trainer

Peggy Smith has over four decades of teaching experience and is at the forefront of bringing empathic thinking and communicating to her region in the Northeastern U.S. She was a teacher in public and alternative schools for 32 years before devoting her full-time energies to this endeavor.

Peggy is a co-founder of the Maine NVC Network and led their educational newsletter team. These are archived http://mainenvcnetwork.org/newsletter-archives.htm. Each contains an NVC teaching article along with a practice exercise. Peggy has shared NVC internationally through Seeds of Peace International Camp, working with educators from the Middle East and South Asia both in Maine and in the region.

A student of Mindfulness since 1991, Peggy was ordained as a teacher by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. She has a passion for helping everyone develop their innate capacity for empathy by integrating mindfulness into how we think and communicate.

Rodrigo Suarez

CNVC Certified Trainer

A CNVC Certified Trainer since 2022, Rodrigo Suarez works in the modalities of NVC and Alexander Technique. Combining the principles of NVC with the Alexander Technique works, he says. “When people come to me for the Alexander Technique, it is usually because something in their body isn't working well,”. “It might be because something in their body is tense.” He introduces NVC into the process, he says, to help people “connect with their feelings and needs to change that tension, that pain, that they feel in their body.”

When people come to him seeking NVC to improve their personal communication, he in turn integrates the Alexander Technique, “because being aware of their bodies helps people become more centered emotionally, and helps also to connect with themselves and understand their feelings and needs, to be able to have better dialogue with people.”

A resident of Mexico, Rodrigo offers workshops and individual sessions and has been featured as a trainer at NVC intensive trainings and workshops around the globe.

River Dunavin

CNVC Certified Trainer and Assessor

I began learning and practicing Nonviolent Communication (NVC) in 2002. I first encountered Marshall Rosenberg in 2004 by participating in a weekend training with him in Albuquerque, NM. My worldview was forever changed by hearing him say, With these ‘Giraffe ears’ I can never hear what a person thinks, only sense the need in their heart.

I began sharing NVC in 2006 after experiencing an International Intensive Training (IIT) with Marshall. My hunger to embody nonviolence was fed by other remarkable NVC influencers including Jorge Rubio-Vollert, Jim and Jori Manske, Robert Gonzales, Mary Mackenzie, John Kinyon, Dominic Barter, Miki Kashtan, Christa Morf, Newt Bailey, Thom Bond, Sylvia Haskvitz, Stephanie Bachmann Mattei, Alan Seid (Rafa), Sarah Peyton and others.

I was recognized as a CNVC Certified Trainer in 2016 and an Assessor/Interpreter in 2025. I reside in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and recall with reverence that the land were i live and work was home to the Lenni-Lenape nation long before settlers arrived.

My arc of spiritual understanding began by being born in 1954 as the youngest of five siblings within a loving and complex Catholic family. Now i am of the belief and feeling that love is the very nature of our being and that we share our being with everyone and everything.

Driven by a desire to discover and experience truth directly, i’ve studied with (and may carry some fragrance of) The Bible, The Book of Tao, Leo Buscaglia, Ken Keyes, Jr., Ram Dass, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (Osho), Stanislav Grof, Jacquelyn Small, Arnold Mindell, Marshall Rosenberg, Mata Amritanandamayi (Amma), Rupert Spira, Roshi Joan Halifax, and Richard Lang.

Acting as a trainer my offerings and NVC experiences include supporting incarcerated men and women, university faculty and staff, medical students, hospital workers, NGO staff, small business, civil court mediation, community mediation, restorative circles, sociocratic governance implementation, community learners and practice groups.

I envision that we all can thrive and do no harm. To support that vision, i sense my mission is to say yes to what is given and to help make what is given more wonderful.

CCCO Affiliate Trainer

Zach Yocum is based in Columbus, Ohio, and offers coaching and workshops combining Nonviolent Communication with somatic/embodiment practices. He attended his first training with Marshall Rosenberg nearly 20 years ago. Continuing to study NVC 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.

In working in the corporate world, non-profit volunteer world, and raising 2 kids, I've learned a lot of what I don't know. NVC transformed my life.

In addition to facilitating/teaching/mediating using NVC, I've co-organized multiple, large, online events and in-person NVC events. The 9-day residential, intensive trainings I continue to co-organize, also drive my growth and learning extensively around teamwork, co-creation, conflict navigation and many other skills.

As a Partner and Parent, I've raised and have great relationships with my two boys. NVC had transformed every relationship in my life, and every aspect of my life.

After becoming a Professional Engineer in Civil Engineering and earning an MBA, I spent 25 years working in semiconductor chip and high-tech marketing . I trained customers, technical sales, and business people on-line and in-person. I worked with global teams. I've traveled the world, and interacted with dozens of cultures.

Eric Huang

CNVC Certified Trainer

Frequently Asked Questions

We want to honor the pace of life and the commitments that are present for many of us in our daily lives, and we are truly grateful for the gift of your presence at this event. In order to offer a full immersive experience, we ask that participants commit to attending at least ⅔ of the live sessions.
Our hope is that this can provide a balance of choice, spaciousness, and full, present participation.
If you have concerns or factors that you would like us to know about, or a proposal of a way that would work for you to participate, please reach out to us at virtualnvc@gmail.com
Yes, we intend to record all sessions and make the videos available to participants after the Online Immersive Training is complete. Breakout groups and the Community Room will not be recorded.
This Online Immersive Training offers the opportunity to work with four CNVC Certified Trainers, which, for those interested in certification yourselves, can certainly be part of the training hours that you complete on the pathway to certification. The CPP suggests that a certain percentage of training hours attended be in person and that a percentage can be online as well. We encourage you to talk to your assessor to clarify as to whether this training can substitute for the suggested multi day residential training for candidates. More information about becoming a CNVC Certified Trainer can be found at https://www.cnvc.org/certification
This Online Immersive Training is for those with any level of NVC experience. If you are new to NVC or would enjoy revisiting the fundamentals, there will be at least one “fundamentals track”, exploring the building blocks of NVC and building on the concepts throughout the nine days.
This event was created for those with any range of NVC experience, from those new to NVC to those who have been practicing, living, and even sharing NVC for years.
Whether you might enjoy revisiting the fundamentals of Compassionate Communication or you prefer to participate in specific topic-based workshops and offerings geared to more experienced practitioners, it is our intention to offer sessions that offer a truly enriching experience.
If you are an advanced practitioner or certification candidate who would like to offer an NVC-based workshop, we welcome you to submit your workshop proposal for one of our evening community-led sessions. This can be an opportunity to not only share your gift with the community, but also to receive important feedback from the community. Please email virtualnvc@gmail.com for submission details.
Yes! Participants will receive a certificate of attendance, issued by the Compassionate Communication Center of Ohio.
We understand that participants might have other commitments in life: work, school, family, etc. Our intention is to make this experience as enriching as possible while also honoring that you are choosing to spend your time and energy being with us- learning, connecting and growing.
We ask that participants commit to attending ⅔ of the live sessions. For example, if you are scheduled to work Fridays but are able to attend Saturdays and Sundays, that would align with our request of attending ⅔ of the sessions.
You will be able to catch up on sessions that you aren’t able to attend by reviewing the recordings after the event.
We want you to be in choice about what works for you as you enjoy this amazing event. If you aren’t able to attend ⅔ of the sessions and you have a proposal of what might work for you to participate, please reach out to us at virtualnvc@gmail.com.