Sussex Police make £400 donation to Mediation Plus

East Sussex Division Superintendant, Neil Honnor presented a cheque for £400 to Wealden and Eastbourne's community mediation service Mediation Plus. The Hailsham based charity, which has been assisting neighbours and families in dispute since 2006, relies on donations and grant funding to maintain their service to local communities.

Mediation Plus Service Manager Clive Gross said "We are very grateful for the donation and continued support from our local Police service. At a time of cuts in public funding, contributions like this are even more valuable in helping the service to survive and will go towards us keeping our volunteer mediators active in the area."

Superintendant Neil Honnor said, “Sussex Police fully support schemes like Mediation Plus and this donation will hopefully go in some small part in helping them to continue the excellent work across Wealden and Eastbourne”.

The donation comes from the Police Property Act Fund, made up of money received by the police from property confiscated by order of court and then sold if an owner cannot be identified.

Double Celebration at Mediation Plus

Last Saturday marked a double celebration at Mediation Plus, as our latest intake of volunteer mediators and five new Trustees joined the service. Following an appeal through the media, a range of local people put themselves forward as potential Trustees and were interviewed by Mediation Plus Chair, John Gallop.

John commented “We were delighted with the interest shown in our service and the range of backgrounds and experience of the people coming forward. With a strong group of Trustees and a growing pool of trained mediators, we are now in a great position to secure the future of Mediation Plus and engage even more widely in the communities we serve.”

Among those joining as Trustees are local Parish Councillor Barbara Molog, former Sussex Police hostage negotiator and mediator Ross Hollister, former head teacher and Royal Marine David Hines, Australian born psychologist and counsellor Deborah Marlin, and specialist management consultant Jonathan Christian.

Presenting certificates to the new volunteer mediators, John added “The response to our new accredited mediation training courses has been great, but covering such a big geographical area as Wealden, Eastbourne and Lewes means we need to maintain a large group of volunteers, so we will be running our next course in September, which we hope will give us over 50 mediators covering the area.”

Anyone interested in training to become a mediator should contact Training Coordinator Joan Eades at Mediation Plus on 01323 442781 or email info@mediation-plus.org.uk for an application pack. There will also be an Open Morning in September where you can find out more about the course and meet some of the current team of mediators. More details about Mediation Plus and our range of services is available on our website