The Conscious Contracts® Certification Process
This document was first published in early 2023, drafted and reviewed by the community, and edited with feedback from certified practitioners and the co-founders. This policy will continue to evolve as the community, process, and profession do. This version: 30 August, 2023.
What it Takes to be a Certified Conscious Contracts® Practitioner
- 40 hours of Conscious Contracts® courses or one-on-one mentoring*
- Any combination of courses but must include a basics course of 12 hours or more. Deep Dives, Advanced Courses, and other CC-sponsored courses can be proposed to meet this requirement.
- Up to 20 hours of coursework can come from collaborative law, facilitative or transformative mediation, Nonviolent Communication, Powerful Non-Defensive Communication, restorative justice, mental health, and similar trainings.
- Reading Discovering Agreement, Contracts that Turn Conflict Into Creativity by Linda Alvarez (now known as Alala Linda)
*mentoring: working one-on-one with a certified practitioner
If you are just starting the certification process and it has been more than 18 months since you completed the Basics Course, we recommend you repeat it. (We’re constantly evolving!)
How to Apply for Certification
To apply for Certification, when you believe you have completed the foundational requirements, please submit a portfolio detailing training and sharing agreements that have been drafted.
The portfolio should include:
- A statement of trainings taken, dates, etc.
- Your Personal Touchstone & Operating Agreement of Me
- At least one Conscious Contracts® agreement that you’ve facilitated and drafted for 2 or more people (creating a template doc for one person doesn’t qualify for certification but we are happy to look at those, too).
When we receive your portfolio, a committee will review it. A member of the committee may interview you and the clients for additional information about the process you followed. The committee may approve your application OR recommend additional training or personal work.
Send to: Submit your portfolio for consideration, when you have met the requirements, please email it to Certification@ConsciousContracts.com.
Some Components of the Conscious Contracts® Process Training
These are topics which we believe are relevant to the Conscious Contracts® process and can be included in the portfolio. This isn’t an exhaustive list but may help you to decide what to include.
- Mindset Shift
- Context of Reinvention of Contracts, Law, & Business
- Touchstone
- Operating Manual for Me
- ACED – Addressing Change and Engaging Disagreement
- Design of Conflict Resolution Programs
- Developing Action Plans (the nuts and bolts, promises being made)
- Vision, Mission, Values
- Trust Building
- Telling on Ourselves, Accountability
- Alignment
- Co-Creation
- Creativity, What it Takes, When to Tap
- Interacting with the old system and people in that paradigm
- Ethics (for lawyers and non-lawyers) [Non-Lawyers are encouraged to include a course on Ethical Issues for Non-Lawyers]
- Coach vs. Therapist vs. Lawyer
- Enforcement
- Freedom to Contract
- Re-Humanizing vs. De-Humanizing
- Legal Design – Visuals, Typography
- Design Thinking
- Plain Language Drafting
- Other contract models (e.g. Relational, Proactive, Pro-Social)
- Somatic Experiencing
- Coaching skills
- Conscious Business Movement
- Giving and receiving feedback
Who Can Certify?
English-speakers: The applicant then submits their portfolio for consideration. We will ask volunteers from the community to evaluate the portfolio and make a recommendation.
Other languages: certain trainers will be given the power to recommend others for certification.
What you get by being Certified
- You can identify yourself as a Certified Conscious Contracts® Practitioner with a license to use the trademarked name.
- You can use the badge on your website/LinkedIn/etc.
- Listing on the website as a Certified Conscious Contracts® Practitioner
- Permission to facilitate events/workshops/programs about experiencing Conscious Contracts® process, (but not teaching or training others in the process).
- Have access to materials only available to certified practitioners.
What you can do even if you don’t get Certified
- Can use the skills you learn
- Can use these skills with your clients
- Can brag about how cool the Conscious Contracts® process is
- Can talk about the Touchstone, ACED, etc. with clients in articles, online, etc.
If not certified
- Can’t say you’re a Conscious Contracts® Practitioner
- Can say you’ve trained in Conscious Contracts® approach
- Can’t teach a Conscious Contracts® event, though you can facilitate the experience with clients or groups of clients. For training others to be practitioners, you can invite and host a certified practitioner.
- How much does it cost to be certified?
o Is there a set cost to the programs required to be a CC certified practitioner?
Different courses cost different amounts, there is no set amount. We encourage trainers to consider global income inequity, access-to-justice, scholarship seats, inclusion of people of color, etc. in how to price offerings. We want the Conscious Contracts® trainings and certifications to be affordable and accessible, not restrictive or only for the privileged few. We also want to respect and recognize the time and resources that trainers contribute.
Sliding Scale Sample Policy: https://docs.google.com/document/d/15g9FQt8xkloxaLD9ddmaQNTDnp0l13Jc/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=107760375376446678993&rtpof=true&sd=true
o Annual License Fee
To date, we have not charged to be included on the website or for any of the community services. As costs for web updates, marketing, and administration have increased, a group of community members agreed that it was appropriate to charge an annual license fee. We’ll keep this affordable and have also included a small percentage for Alalá and Kim as a founders’ fee
o For 2023, the fee is waived if you are certified by June 1, 2023. Beginning January 1, 2024, the annual fee is $100 US.