Sara Cook

Sara's career began in non-profit management, giving her an insight into the complexity of workplace dynamics that can lead to the need for equipping staff with new skills to manage dispute resolution. Her peacebuilding and conflict response work in Northern Ireland provided Sara with several decades of experience in dialogue, mediation and narrative approaches to conflict resolution. Since 2018, Sara has used learning from Northern Ireland to engage in international work, supporting organisations around the world with training, consultancy, mediation, dialogue facilitation and conflict coaching. Sara is passionate about creating training environments that feel transformational. As a training facilitator, Sara crafts shared spaces that go beyond learning new skills and approaches and allow groups to connect more deeply. She sees her role as a facilitator as creating the space for effective engagement and genuine encounter, supporting groups with tools and processes that allow them to find new ways forward. Sara's work in international conflict contexts has included work with victims and survivors of violence, security forces, and paramilitaries. This unique experience gives her special expertise in working sensitively with people who have experienced trauma or may be perceived as "hard to reach". In both training and ADR contexts, Sara brings this expertise into her practice to allow safer and more effective processes for both individuals and groups. Sara's training facilitation experience ranges from the United Nations to grassroots communities. She is passionate about ensuring that people access new skills to manage conflict from the local to the global.