Mediation skills training aims to support local community

A group of nine participants have successfully completed the first pilot community outreach mediationskills training course run by Mediation Plus at the Willingdon Trees Community Centre last week.

Supported by funding from the Sussex Community Foundation, Mediation Plus adapted their accredited mediation course to meet the needs of learners from a wide range of backgrounds who would benefit from having these skills in their professional and working lives.

The group included a Community Officer and Neighbourhood Advisor from Eastbourne Borough Council, a PCSO who helps co-ordinate the Police to response to neighbour disputes, two volunteers from a local community drop-in centre, an agency nurse, and local a provider of accommodation to ex-offenders.

Mediation Plus Service Manager Clive Gross commented “This successful pilot course demonstrates just how much value mediation skills can have in so many different areas, and we are really pleased that we have been able to deliver them to people who are supporting so many different groups in the local community.”

The new mediators all completed the twelve week training and will now have the opportunity to work with members of Mediation Plus’s experienced mediation team taking on new cases across Eastbourne to practice their skills and work to complete their full accreditation from the Open College Network.

Joan Eades, Training Manager at Mediation Plus said “We have been looking at how we can offer mediation training in the wider community to people who would not be able to attend our regular volunteer training courses and have been delighted that we have been able to work with people from such diverse backgrounds in our first course. We are very keen to build on this in the future.”

Mediation Plus would like to hear from other community and voluntary groups, front-line support organisations or individuals who think they could benefit from gaining mediation skills so they can look to develop further courses. Anyone interested should contact Joan Eades at Mediation Plus on 01323 442781 or email training@mediation-plus.org.uk for an initial discussion.

Drop in to find out more about free mediation skills training

If you are unemployed or not working and living in the Wealden or Eastbourne area, local community mediation charity Mediation Plus are offering free mediation skills training for up to 20 people to become Neighbourhood Mediators in their communities.

Supported by funding from the European Social Fund through the Skills Funding Agency, the course offers participants the opportunity to develop mediation skills through exercises, group work and role play. Mediation skills are applicable to many professional sectors, including housing, young people’s services, family support, education and many more.

The course is aimed at those looking to return to education and training, get into community volunteering, or learn new skills that may help them back into employment. Completing the course and accreditation process will give participants a recognised qualification at Level 2 or 3 that they will be able to build on with further training in the future.

Mediation Plus are holding a drop in session to find out more about the course at their offices in Western Road, Hailsham on Thursday 16th May between 10 and 11am. If you would like to attend, or get more details and an application form, please call Joan Eades on 01323 442781 or email training@mediation-plus.org.uk

Mediation service sees increase in referrals after legal aid cuts

Mediation Plus - the community mediation service covering Eastbourne and Wealden - has seen an increase in referrals to their family mediation service following cuts to legal aid funding to a wide variety of civil legal actions that came into effect in April.

Although pleased that mediation is becoming more widely recognised as an effective way to resolve conflict, the Hailsham based service - which offers mediation for neighbour, family, intergenerational and workplace disputes - is concerned that government agencies are seeing mediation as a cheap alternative to legal action and have not informed the public how the process really works.

Mediation Plus Service Manager Clive Gross commented "Mediation is about helping people to find their own solutions and is a voluntary process, while going to court is adversarial with an imposed solution at the end. Our service is not about taking sides or deciding who may be right or wrong. From the enquiries we are receiving, many people clearly do not understand this. They are looking for something to be enforced and are often not in the right state of mind to enter into mediation."

To help people better understand how family mediation works, the service has recently trained a group of its existing volunteer mediators to be able to talk people through the process and allow them to assess whether mediation is right for them. Supported with funding from the Affinity Sutton Community Fund, eight volunteers have just completed an OCN accredited family mediation course and are available to have an initial informal and confidential discussion with anyone wanting to explore the idea.

Clive Gross added "Helping people to really understand the power of mediation in different circumstances is a very important part of what we do, so we hope that giving our volunteers this extra knowledge will help more local people understand and access our service. While family mediation is not free, as a charitable organisation we are able to keep costs much lower that for-profit mediation organisations, and helps to support our community mediation work across Eastbourne and Wealden."

To find out more, visit the Mediation Plus website or call us on 01323 442781.

Co-op support training new mediators at Mediation Plus

A new group of neighbourhood mediators have just completed their training with Mediation Plus – the community mediation service covering Eastbourne, Wealden and Lewes – with the support of funding from The Co-operative Community Fund.


The new mediators all completed four days of intensive training and will now partner members of the organisations experienced mediation team as they take on new cases across the area and work to complete their full accreditation from the Open College Network.

Joan Eades, Training Development Manager at Mediation Plus said “We have been impressed with the very high calibre of people training as mediators with us, all of whom bring a wide variety of professional and personal experience to the service. This supports us in being able to deal with the complex and often entrenched issues that are referred to us and allows us to offer a broader range of mediation services across our area.”

Also celebrating joining the service in a new capacity was experienced mediator Izzy Halton, who has just passed her PTTLS course with support from East Sussex County Council’s Skills Share Bursary Fund and becomes one of Mediation Plus’s group of in-house trainers.

Joan continued “As a specialist mediation training provider, we are particularly keen that all our trainers have experience working in the field, so we are delighted to have Izzy on board as a trainer and are planning to add two more mediator trainers to our group this year.”

Mediation Plus also has a few places left on their first community mediation training course starting in Willingdon Trees next month, aimed at training people from local communities to help tackle disputes in their area. The course will cover step-by-step mediation process, how to use different questioning styles, encouraging participation in mediation, confidentiality and impartiality, and ethical and professional standards.

Anyone interested in signing up for the course should contact Joan Eades at Mediation Plus on 01323 442781 or email training@mediation-plus.org.uk as soon as possible for an application pack.

Free Mediation training on offer for those who can see both sides of disputes

Mediation Plus – the community mediation service for Eastbourne and Wealden – is looking for tenants in the Willingdon area who think they are good at listening to both sides to train to become Neighbourhood Mediators.

 

Supported by funding from the European Social Fund through the Skills Funding Agency, and supported by Eastbourne Homes, Mediation Plus will be running its first ever community based Mediation skills training programme at the Willingdon Trees Community Centre starting next month.

They are looking to create a team of up to 20 trained accredited community mediators who can intervene early to diffuse local conflicts, neighbour disputes and anti-social behaviour in their area, helping to prevent minor issues becoming major problems and improving the quality of life of all residents in the neighbourhood. A number of participants will go on to be trained as trainers, who can help recruit and train further volunteers in the future.

This course offers participants the opportunity to develop mediation skills through exercises, group work and role play. Mediation skills are applicable to many professional sectors, including housing, young people’s services, family support, education and many more.

It is suitable for those looking to return to education and training, get into community volunteering, or learn new skills that may help them back into employment. Completing the course and accreditation process will give participants a recognised qualification at Level 2 or 3 that they will be able to build on with further training in the future.

Anyone interested can come to a Drop-in Session at the centre on Tuesday January 22nd from 10am-1pm where you can come and meet the Mediation Plus team and some of their other volunteer mediators. If you would like details and an application form, please call 01323 442781 or email training@mediation-plus.org.uk

Mediation Charity Chair retires after over 12 years of service

After over twelve years of supporting the establishment of community mediation across Eastbourne and Wealden, Mediation Plus Chair of Trustees, John Gallop, stood down at the charity’s AGM this week (October 29^th) having seen the service through a very challenging period of change.

John used his last annual report to the meeting to highlight how the organisation has survived funding cuts and a financial deficit and was now looking forward to further positive developments over the next few years. John told the meeting:

“Over the past two years my report has highlighted the adverse effects that the economic recession has had upon both our community and the charitable sector and our sources of funding remain just as hard to attract. Clearly we are not out of the woods yet and Mediation Plus is still operating under difficult circumstances but, despite these difficulties, the service has survived and is already developing new strategies to assist in ensuring that this situation continues.”

John was instrumental in helping to set up the original pilot local mediation project in Hailsham in 1999, and has been Chair of Trustees for Mediation Plus since it was formed in 2006 by the merger of Eastbourne Community and Wealden Independent Mediation Services.

Explaining how he became involved, John said “My interest in mediation grew from my work at the time in pollution control at Wealden District Council. We were dealing with many complaints and neighbour disputes which we recognised could be better resolved by getting people talking to each other. Some people find it more difficult to talk openly if the Council is involved. So with the help of a government grant and the assistance of several other bodies, including the local Police, Social Services and the CAB, we set up an independent mediation service.”

The meeting saw the election of a new Board of six Trustees to guide the service over the next year as it continues to develop new ways of delivering mediation and conflict resolution services in the area. The charity has just been successful in a bid to run its first pilot outreach Community Mediation Skills Training course, where local residents from a deprived area will be trained to help mediate disputes in their local community.

John concluded “I should like to extend my thanks and gratitude, on behalf of my fellow Trustees, to all of the volunteer mediators, without whom there would be no service. I have witnessed Mediation Plus go from strength to strength. With the arrival of a number of excellent new Trustees this year, and in the knowledge that we have such wonderful staff at the helm, I am satisfied that the service will remain in good hands.”

NHS Survey Reveals Greater Trust in Mediation

Mediation Plus - the community mediation service for Eastbourne and Wealden - has welcomed the results of a new survey of NHS Trusts across the country has shown that mediation is gaining in both popularity and credibility within the healthcare sector.

Of the 133 Trusts which responded to the survey conducted by the TCM Group, 83% are already using mediation to resolve workplace disputes, with 87% of those reporting a significant reduction in the number of grievances.  Some 43% of Trusts reported a fall in the number of employment tribunals they had to defend, a statistic they attribute directly to the introduction of a mediation scheme.

Evidence from the survey suggests that that NHS Trusts are using mediation to secure positive outcomes within an increasingly complex and challenging range of conflicts and change processes. Trusts reported that they were using mediation to resolve disputes between colleagues, as well as managing conflict between healthcare professionals, patients and their families.

Disputes within the NHS, like so many other sectors, are damaging, destructive and a significant distraction at times of major change and transformation. With such negative impacts, it seems that many Trusts feel that enough is enough and are turning to mediation as an exciting alternative which it seems is delivering significant benefits. The outcomes being reported from mediation are impressive and NHS staff are seeing that mediation can produce very creative solutions to systemic problems by engaging everyone.

Mediation Plus Service Manager Clive Gross said “The results of this survey demonstrates that using mediation can result in less time is being spent dealing with grievances and litigation, resulting in reduced costs on tribunal hearings and reduced stress on all parties involved. Finding solutions that everyone agrees to and are not imposed from above leads to increased levels of wellbeing and productivity, which are major benefits to the NHS or any organisation looking to resolve disputes in a non-confrontational way.”

Mediation Plus offers both workplace mediation to local organisations and businesses, and accredited mediation skills training to managers and other employees who have to deal with the public or handle complaints. This includes other areas of the healthcare sector including providers of care and nursing homes.

Gill Bellord, Head of employee relations at NHS Employers is particularly enthusiastic about the role of mediation. “NHS Employers support the increased use of mediation in the NHS as an effective means of resolving complaints, managing change and handling workplace disputes. There are benefits in terms of outcomes, maintaining on-going relationships and value for money.”

For more information about the mediation services and training available locally, call Mediation Plus on 01323 442781 or visit our main website.