Why Day 1 matters: Most youth workers react to conflict as though all conflict is the same — an emergency to be stopped. Day 1 challenges this. You learn to read conflict: what type it is, what’s driving it beneath the surface, what stage it’s at, and what intervention (if any) is appropriate. Critically, you build understanding of how cultural background — Arab, African, South Asian — shapes how young people experience, express, and expect conflict to be handled.

• What conflict is and what it isn’t — productive vs. destructive conflict in youth programme settings
• Root causes of conflict among young people: identity, belonging, status, resources, cultural and family background
• The conflict escalation ladder — recognising what stage a conflict is at and intervening at the right moment
• Cultural dimensions of conflict in GCC and African contexts: how Arab, East African, West African, and South Asian cultural norms shape conflict expression
• Conflict triggers specific to GCC youth programmes: religious differences, gender dynamics, socioeconomic disparities
• Self-assessment: your own conflict style and how it helps and hinders your work with young people

Why Day 2 matters: De-escalation is the highest-value conflict skill for youth workers — it’s what prevents a disagreement from becoming a physical altercation or a community-wide incident. Day 2 is almost entirely practical: you learn and immediately practise specific de-escalation techniques through role-play with real youth programme scenarios from the GCC and Africa.

• The physiology of conflict: what happens in the brain during high-arousal states and how this affects young people’s behaviour
• Non-verbal de-escalation: positioning, movement, eye contact, and space management
• Verbal de-escalation: tone, pace, language choice — specific phrases that work and specific phrases that inflame
• The LOWLINE model for de-escalation: Listen, Open questions, Windmill, Low arousal, Ignore challenging behaviour, Non-confrontational, Empathy
• Managing groups during escalation: how to intervene with an individual while keeping the wider group safe
• When not to intervene: assessing risk and knowing when to call for support
• Role-play practice: 6+ scenarios from GCC and African youth programme contexts with facilitator feedback

Session is predominantly live role-play — this is the most physically and emotionally demanding day of the course

Why Day 3 matters: De-escalation stops the immediate crisis. Mediation is what resolves the underlying conflict so it doesn’t recur. Day 3 teaches you to facilitate structured mediation conversations between young people — and introduces restorative practice, which is increasingly the evidence-based approach of choice for youth-focused conflict resolution internationally, including in Gulf and African contexts.

• Mediation principles: the role of the mediator, neutrality, and what makes mediation different from judging
• The six-stage mediation process: introduction, storytelling, problem identification, option generation, agreement, closure
• Restorative questions: the specific question sequence that moves from blame to responsibility to repair
• Restorative circles: how to facilitate a restorative circle for peer conflict in a group setting
• Mediation in GCC cultural contexts: managing face-saving, family involvement, and hierarchy during mediation
• When mediation is not appropriate: cases involving power imbalance, abuse, or safeguarding concerns
• Full mediation simulation: participants mediate a complex peer dispute in pairs with observer feedback

Session includes: full mediation simulation across multiple scenarios

Why Day 4 matters: Most conflict in youth programmes is not a sudden explosion — it develops over time through group dynamics that go unmanaged. Day 4 gives you the skills to read group dynamics, identify early warning signs of bullying and exclusion, and implement peer support and peer mediation programmes that create a culture of constructive conflict resolution within the programme itself.

• Group dynamics in youth settings: formation, norming, storming — how groups move through conflict cycles
• Social exclusion and bullying in GCC and African youth contexts: how it manifests, what enables it, how to disrupt it
• Online and social media conflict: increasingly significant in GCC youth programmes — specific strategies for managing it
• Designing and implementing a peer mediation programme: how to select, train, and support youth peer mediators
• Restorative reintegration: bringing a young person back into the group after exclusion or conflict-related absence
• Working with families: how to involve parents and caregivers in conflict resolution appropriately in GCC and African cultural contexts

Why Day 5 matters: Working regularly with conflict in youth settings takes a toll — and practitioners who don’t manage this well burn out or develop unhealthy responses. Day 5 addresses practitioner wellbeing alongside the procedural and organisational dimensions: documentation, safeguarding obligations, and how to build a programme culture where conflict is handled constructively at every level.

• Managing your own emotional response to conflict: recognising vicarious trauma and compassion fatigue
• Self-regulation strategies: evidence-based approaches for practitioners working in high-conflict environments
• Documentation: what to record, how to record it, and why accurate documentation matters for safeguarding and programme quality
• Safeguarding and mandatory reporting: when conflict situations trigger safeguarding obligations and how to respond
• Building a conflict-competent team: how to develop your team’s conflict skills as a programme manager or team leader
• 90-day implementation plan: specific changes you will make to your programme’s conflict approach