Volunteering for Calm Mediation Services as a community mediator, looking at ways to resolve conflict and disputes between neighbours living in social housing.
COMMUNITY MEDIATION
Below is an except from the website of London based mediation charity Calm Mediation that identifies the challenges neighbours face and why the role of the mediator is so important.
Conflict at home – with neighbours, within the family or the wider community – can seriously affect people’s health and wellbeing. Instead of a place of refuge, home can become a place of tension and unhappiness. In these circumstances, people commonly suffer sleep loss and other symptoms of stress, which in turn may impact on their physical health and their ability to function well in their wider lives. Housing organisations spend much time and resources supporting tenants who are in dispute over noise, clash of lifestyles, use of shared spaces, boundaries and parking, children, pets, damage to property, problem behaviour, harassment, allegations of sexism, racism, homophobia and other forms of intolerance.
Disputes can drag on and may impact on other neighbours too. They can lead to costly legal proceedings which often entrench, rather than resolve, bad feeling. Calm Mediation provides trained mediators to quickly and constructively address disputes involving neighbours, family members, young people, or groups of people – in fact in almost any situation where each side is willing to participate and an informal solution is possible. As impartial third parties, Calm’s mediators enable people in conflict to have a structured conversation, allowing them to air concerns, build understanding and find ways of improving the situation. Using the facilitative model of mediation, Calm helps clients to create their own workable, lasting solutions to problems.
THE ROLE OF THE MEDIATOR
The mediator helps clients talk and listen to each other constructively, in a safe environment. They don’t judge the rights and wrongs of disputes, or provide opinions or advice. They are skilled in helping clients to look to the future and work out their own lasting solutions.
QUALIFICATIONS & PRACTICE
In 2017 I (Lou, Adventure founder) completed my training and qualified as a mediator with the London School of Mediation, leaving me able to practice in a professional capacity as a commercial mediator and as a volunteer in community mediation. I chose community mediation, and found Calm Mediation, a charity that provides this service to residents on behalf of housing associations operating in London. The training and experience I’ve had in this area has been very rewarding and has also helped to shape my ideas around social cohesion and relationship building more generally.
