Basic Mediation Training Faculty

Carl D. Schneider, PhD.

Over the past 20 years, Carl has trained several thousand family mediators locally, nationally, and abroad. Currently Director of Mediation Matters, Bethesda, Maryland, Carl is a registered psychologist, licensed clinical Marriage and Family Therapist, Certified Mediator with the Maryland Council on Dispute Resolution and with the Supreme Court of Virginia, and an Advanced Practitioner Member of the Association for Conflict Resolution (ACR). Carl is the former Director (1981-1989) of Divorce Mediation Service, a group practice of 16 mediators in the Chicago area, and former Director of the Mediation Program of Woodbury College in Montpelier, Vermont. He has been on the Board of Directors of the national Academy of Family Mediators, the Mediation Council of Illinois, and the Family Mediation Association of Georgia. Carl is author of Shame, Exposure and Privacy (Norton, 1992) and has served on the editorial board of Mediation Quarterly. He holds a M. Div. degree from Union Theological Seminary in N.Y.C. and a Ph.D. from Harvard University.

Sharon Pickett, MA

Sharon has worked as a family mediator since 1999. She is a certified mediator with the Maryland Council on Dispute Resolution and serves as a Reviewer on MCDR’s Certification Committee. She is a Practitioner Member of the Association for Conflict Resolution (ACR), the national association of mediators and conflict resolution professionals, and serves as Associate Editor of the ACR quarterly magazine and as a consultant to the CEO. Sharon brings more than 30 years experience in education and communications to her role as a mediator. She holds a masters degree from Dartmouth College where she was also a Lecturer in Education and Assistant Dean of Students. Since 1997, she has directed Sharon Pickett & Associates, a consulting firm that provides mediation, communications consulting, and coaching for clients nationwide. Sharon co-mediates and co-trains with Carl Schneider.