Developing training modules
Designing and running training modules that address the cultural and social dimensions of conflict in each Caribbean territory.
Our mandate
The Centre’s mandate is to provide training in alternative dispute resolution processes to a diverse clientele across the Caribbean. We do this by:
Designing and running training modules that address the cultural and social dimensions of conflict in each Caribbean territory.
Providing seminars and workshops to regional government departments and private firms, in both specialised and general areas of alternative dispute resolution.
Advising firms and government agencies on putting dispute resolution processes and laws into practice.
Our philosophy
Over the years, the Centre has trained people from these professions:







What we do
Learn the principles of effective listening and communication at work, and improve working relationships and customer service.
Course detailsBuild the foundational skills to train as a mediator, taught by experienced practising mediators.
Course detailsApply mediation skills in an HR setting, and gain the negotiation skills needed for industrial disputes.
Course detailsUnderstand how leadership style and workplace conflict interact, and build team rapport to improve productivity.
Course detailsLearn to solve problems and to deal with difficult personalities when you negotiate.
Course detailsImprove customer relations and build team rapport to deliver exceptional service in the hospitality sector.
Course details
Lead Mediator
LLB, LLM, MSc · Principal and Founder
Maria Phillips, LLB, LLM, MSc, has been a practising Attorney-at-Law for over fifteen years. She has built a general legal practice, versed in both contentious and non-contentious matters in family, civil and criminal law.
Since 2007 Ms Phillips has facilitated mediation workshops that have trained key personnel in government and the private sector, in Barbados and across the region. She lectures in Alternative Dispute Resolution at the University of the West Indies Faculty of Law, Cave Hill Campus, as part of the undergraduate law degree, and was instrumental in designing negotiation and mediation workshops in Alternative Dispute Resolution.
Ms Phillips completed her training and certification in mediation with the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution in London and the Trinidad Mediation Board. In service to her community, she has sat on several boards and works with charities.
Meet the team

Facilitator / Mediator
Rochelle is an Attorney-at-Law practising in civil litigation, including personal injury, landlord and tenant matters, contractual agreements, corporate matters, and family and employment disputes. She is also trained in human rights.
A certified mediator, Rochelle believes in mediation as an effective way to resolve conflict. She went on to earn a Master of Science in Mediation Studies, for which she researched conflict resolution preferences in Barbados.
She trained in mediation with the Trinidad Mediation Board and is on the Trinidad mediator roster. Through Barbados’s court-annexed mediation programme she has also received training specific to Barbados, and she is a rostered mediator for the Barbados Supreme Court’s Court-Annexed Mediation Project.

Facilitator / Mediator
Mr Durrant is a director of the Centre as well as a family mediator and facilitator. A Minister of Religion and a counsellor, he has served the Church and the wider community for the past fifteen years.
Alongside Holy Spirit Ministries, the church he co-founded with his wife, he founded Share Men International, a Barbados charity that supports the development of men through seminars, workshops, conferences, and television and radio programmes on the issues facing today’s man.
Share Men runs a sixteen-week programme for men who are abusive, and for men who are being abused, especially by women. It gives men the tools and skills to make the lasting changes in behaviour that are critical to building and sustaining strong families.
Mr Durrant continues to train in counselling to help build strong families in Barbados and beyond. He is also an entrepreneur and the founder of Koah Enterprises, a multi-faceted business.

Facilitator / Mediator
With over 40 years of executive business experience, Elsa has held senior positions as CEO, principal business consultant, Chief Technology Officer and Training Director. Her experience spans strategic development, HR, business training development, and information and communications technology.
Ms Webster has a wealth of experience in developing and delivering training curricula. She started the first Microsoft Certified Training Centre and ICT Professional Training Centre, which trained and certified more than 20,000 people across the Caribbean. As a business development consultant she created a wide range of customisable business courseware and instructor guides for corporations seeking to raise productivity, and delivered learning modules on the first online learning management platform in the Caribbean.
Today Ms Webster is especially interested in mediation, and in programmes that help organisations understand conflict and the negative behaviours that threaten the health and well-being of employees.
She holds an MPhil and a BSc in Agriculture from the University of the West Indies and an MBA from the University of Surrey, along with several professional certifications in ICT and project management. She has served on several boards and committees in business and the public sector.

Facilitator / Mediator
A qualified occupational therapist, Mr Rochester heads the Occupational Therapy Department at the Psychiatric Hospital and has over 20 years’ experience in the field. He is passionate about helping people regain a level of effective functioning in their daily living activities.
A graduate of Brunel University, London, Mr Rochester has served in many capacities across organisations in the medical field. He is a former Vice President of the Barbados Association of Mental Health, former Chairman of the Paramedical Professions Council and former President of the Association of Caribbean Occupational Therapists, to name a few.
He has spoken at conferences in Barbados and across the Caribbean, and has facilitated training for public and private sector organisations and for church communities.
He is the father of two children and husband to his charming wife, Cathy, and lives by the motto “with God all things are possible.”
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