Peaceful Playgrounds is a program that provides schools with a variety of outdoor games that keep students involved. The program also offers a Conflict Resolution component that teaches students how to solve problems peacefully.

For the past six years, Park has trained fourth- and fifth-graders in a different Conflict Resolution program called “Conflict Managers”. These students learned how to help students on the playground to solve conflicts peacefully. However, as the students learned these skills, there was less and less of a need for Conflict Managers and the students who were trained didn’t feel useful anymore. Therefore, this year we decided to create a new role for fourth- and fifth-grade volunteers that integrated the Conflict Manager Program with the new Peaceful Playground Program. This new position is called a Peaceful Playground Coach (PPC). The main role of the PPC is to initiate and help facilitate the games from the Peaceful Playground Program. If there happens to be a conflict, the PPC is also trained in a protocol for helping to resolve a conflict peacefully.