What is it?

Mediation is a voluntary way of dealing with disputes. It has proven to be successful in resolving a wide variety of disputes, and enables the people involved to reach an agreement that satisfies everyone.

Focusing on the future encourages participants to rebuild relationships rather than apportioning blame for what has happened in the past. By acknowledging feelings as well as facts, it allows participants to let go of anger and upset, and move forward.

People in dispute often find that communication and trust has broken down. Mediation provides an impartial third party to help them re-build this in a safe and effective way, and enables the parties to come up with practical solutions which will benefit everyone.

Mediation is confidential and all meetings take place in private. It can also avoid the expense of obtaining legal advice or going to court.

Mediators will never take action or do anything without the permission of all parties involved in the dispute. Mediation is a confidential process and all proceedings are conducted on a “without prejudice” basis.

Mediators

Our mediators are all volunteers from the local community who wish to help people involved in conflict. They are impartial, independent, and always work in pairs.

WKM require all their volunteers to undertake a free 40-hour community mediation training course. This includes the theory of mediation, role play, and the skills mediators need, such as active listening, communication and empathy. They then work with an experienced WKM mediator on three community cases, under the guidance of one of our qualified supervisors. It is the policy of WKM to require all its volunteers to hold a current enhanced criminal records bureau certificate.

Additional training is available for mediators wishing to work on parent/teen, victim offender, homeless and schools cases.

If you are interested in learning new skills and becoming a volunteer mediator for West Kent Mediation, we would like to hear from you.