Peer Mediation Working Group – Launching New Projects

The CMC Peer Mediation Working Group met on the 10th September to progress their work to raise the profile of peer mediation training in schools.  It was a pivotal meeting where projects that had been in the planning for months were launched. It was great to welcome five new members to the group and learn what had sparked their interest in peer mediation.

The Peer Mediation Working Group benefits from diverse support to include those with commercial, workplace, SEND and community mediation experience as well as those with a teaching background, experience of working with local authorities and school governor experience. As usual, our meeting began with a skill share.

Chair Michele Wheeler had arranged for educationalist Dr Susan Tindal to speak to the group about the growing number of children who are now home schooled.  A best estimate is that there are now 140,000 children being educated at home and a key discussion centred on how home-schooled children might best be able to access peer mediation training or learn conflict resolution skills. Thank you to the providers who have subsequently advised that they are working locally to develop their offer to provide access to training.

The CMC Conference on the 6 and 7th November has a session dedicated to peer mediation and who better to hear from at that session than young mediators themselves! Former BBC new reader and mediator Joanna Gosling has kindly agreed to be interviewed by four peer mediators and plans for that session were put in to place. Thank you to Ellis Brooks from Quakers in Britain for agreeing to support further planning for this session. If you would like to find out more about the CMC annual conference you can do so here CMC Conference 2024 – A Broader Reach.

Promoting peer mediation is never off the agenda and it was good to have the opportunity to share learning from a recent trip to Belfast with group member Dave Walker MBE for the Restorative Justice Council Conference ‘Breaking The Cycle : restorative strategies to disrupt the school to prison pipeline’. The Conference had so much relevance to the work of peer mediators and emphasised the value of creating a restorative culture in schools.

Also on the Agenda was a discussion about this year’s highly anticipated National Mediation Awards for which an incredible nine nominations have been made for Peer Mediation Scheme of the Year, reflecting a growing application in schools.

The key elements of the meeting focused on two things: The launch of the first ever national peer mediation evaluation project, which will run for the academic year 2024/2025 and result in a report in the Autumn of 2025 and also the new CMC Peer Mediation Workbook that once completed post training, enables children to receive a CMC certificate. Many thanks to our two sub groups ably led by Ben Harper for designing these projects and for getting both projects to this key stage.

Our next meeting will be on the 16th January 2025 and if you would like to know more about the work of the CMC Peer Mediation Working Group please contact projects@civilmediation.org.