Home - West Kent Mediation

We're here to listen.
We're here to talk.
We're here to resolve.

We're here to listen.|We're here to talk.|We help resolve conflict.

West Kent Mediation provides a confidential, impartial mediation service helping to resolve conflict within the Sevenoaks District, as well as the Boroughs of Tonbridge & Malling and Tunbridge Wells. Our service is free of charge to all residents of Sevenoaks District and Tonbridge & Malling Borough.

Our office hours: Monday to Thursday – 9:30am to 4:30pm

West Kent Mediation is a volunteer-led charity focusing primarily on helping to resolve neighbour and community disputes. We also mediate a range of other disputes, including disagreements between family members or friends, as well as disputes between residents and tradespeople or other service providers.

In addition, we offer a chargeable workplace mediation service to local employers and mediation training for primary school children.

Our Mediation Services

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Neighbour and Community Mediation

There are all sorts of reasons why people get into disputes with their neighbours and our impartial mediators work with all parties to help resolve the issues and restore harmony within communities.

Family Mediation

We mediate all kinds of disputes within families, although we do not provide family mediation for divorce and separation where a court order is required to formalise the arrangements.

Workplace Mediation

Disputes within the workplace are surprisingly common and can be costly to businesses if not addressed in a timely manner. Our service is cost-effective and takes up a lot less management time than a grievance process.

Peer Mediation in Schools

We provide peer mediation training to local primary schools teaching year 5 and year 6 pupils important skills for life. This service is generally chargeable, although we fundraise to enable us to offer the training free of charge to some local schools.

What is mediation?

Mediation is a voluntary way of dealing with conflict

Mediation has proven to be successful in resolving a wide variety of disputes and enables those involved to reach an agreement that meets the needs of everyone to some degree. Focusing on the future, it encourages all parties involved in a dispute to rebuild relationships rather than apportioning blame for what has happened in the past. By acknowledging feelings as well as facts, it allows parties to let go of anger and upset and move forward. People in dispute often find that communication and trust have broken down. Mediation provides an impartial third party to help those in dispute negotiate with each other in a safe and effective way, enabling them to come up with practical solutions that will benefit everyone.

Mediation is confidential and all meetings take place in private

Mediators will never take action or do anything without the permission of the parties involved.

Mediation agreements are not legally binding

Mediation is not a legal process and does not prevent parties from initiating other procedures. All mediation proceedings are conducted on a “without prejudice” basis meaning that anything raised during the mediation process cannot be used in evidence in any subsequent legal proceedings.

How does our service work?

You make a referral to our service

The first stage of the process is to make a referral to our service.

Residents can self-refer by contacting us and we also receive referrals from a range of organisations, including housing associations, local councils and Kent Police.

All parties must agree to take part

Mediation is voluntary and all parties must agree to take part for the process to continue.

Anyone can withdraw from the process at any stage and the process necessarily has to end if one party withdraws, unless there are more than two parties involved in the dispute.

We assign your case to one of our volunteer mediators

After an initial introductory call to the parties by our office staff, we assign the case to one of our volunteer mediators who contacts both parties separately to talk through the issues that are concerning them and how they would like them to be resolved. Information shared during these conversations is kept confidential (with the exception of disclosure of serious abuse) unless otherwise agreed.

We arrange a joint meeting

If both parties agree to attend a joint meeting, this is arranged by West Kent Mediation at a mutually convenient time in a neutral venue such as a church or village hall.

Two mediators – a lead mediator and a co-mediator - are always present at joint meetings. At the start of the meeting, the mediators ask the parties to abide by some basic ground rules, such as listening without interrupting and not using offensive language.

Each of the parties is then given some uninterrupted time to make an introductory statement about the problem as it affects them.

After checking everyone’s understanding of what each party said during the introductory statements, the mediators facilitate a discussion on the issues raised.

Very often, this discussion results in the parties reaching certain agreements, which are written up by one of the mediators and signed by the parties.

The mediation agreement is not a legally binding document but rather acts as a reminder of the points agreed at the meeting.

When a joint meeting is not possible

Our preference is always for the parties to attend a joint meeting as we generally find this is the most effective way to reach an agreement that lasts. However, when one party is unwilling to attend or the mediators decide a joint meeting would be inappropriate, there is the option for shuttle mediation to take place.

This involves mediators shuttling between the two parties to try to reach an agreement. Shuttle mediation can be carried out by telephone or with the two parties in the same venue but in different rooms. We sometimes carry out telephone shuttle mediation for out of area cases that are too far for our volunteer mediators to travel.