Cheryl A. Picard, B.A., MSW, Ph.D.

Dr. Cheryl Picard is an educator, mediator, trainer and consultant specializing in the areas of conflict management and mediation. She is a tenured member of the Department of Law at Carleton University. Professor Picard was the Founding Director of the Mediation Centre at Carleton University, a teaching, research and service centre. Currently she is the Director of the Graduate Certificate in Conflict Resolution, a program she was instrumental in establishing in 1997. 

Dr. Picard received her Batchelor of Arts from the University of Prince Edward Island in 1975, her Master of Social Work from Dalhousie University in 1978, and her Ph.D. in sociology from Carleton University in 2000. Her doctoral dissertation examined how mediators understand mediation and how these understandings vary by gender, educational background, dispute sector and length of time working as a mediator.

Dr. Picard is active locally and internationally promoting and developing conflict management and mediation programs. Her career began in 1978 where she founded a
victim-offender mediation program in Halifax, Nova Scotia; nine years later while working in Ottawa she implemented one of the first high school mediation programs in Canada.  Since 1994 she has been overseeing the design, implementation, training and evaluation of a country-wide school peer mediation and conflict management curriculum initiative in both the primary and secondary grade levels in Bermuda in collaboration with the Coalition for the Protection of Children. Cheryl is one of the founders, and past Chair of the Neighbourhood Coalition for Conflict Resolution (NCCR) a community-based conflict resolution program situated in a low-income multi-cultural neighbourhood in Ottawa.

Dr. Picard has mediated many one-on-one, small and large group conflicts. She brings a relational ideology of practice to her work, which means that she views people as connected to each other by a shared desire for self-determination and social harmony.  She has also presented at numerous academic and professional dispute resolution conferences and has written on the topic. Her most recent publication is a book entitled, Mediating Interpersonal and Small Group Conflict, an introductory primer for individuals interested in mediation theory and practice. 

Professor Picard is a former Chair of the Canadian Network for Conflict Resolution and a past member of the Board of Directors of the Society for Professionals in Dispute Resolution (SPIDR) where she held the position of Vice-President Region VIII. She has also been a board member with the National Conference on Peacemaking and Conflict Resolution (NCPCR), the Dispute Resolution Centre for Ottawa-Carleton (DRC), and the Canadian Institute for Conflict Resolution (CICR).

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