Mediation Hertfordshire
Monthly Bulletin
June 2008
As last month’s newsletter was long (and thanks to those who contacted me about the Cultural Issues in Mediation article), this time we have a short update from the office. Please remember to let me know whether you find this useful, or would like other items included, and you can always view the latest edition and back editions on our website www.mediationherts.org.uk
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June Mediators Meeting
We had a very enjoyable evening meeting in early June, at which we said farewell to Paul and had a speaker from Parentline Plus, describing the work that is done both nationally and locally.
Parentline Plus is a well-established organisation which has a Head Office and area offices around the country. The Hertfordshire office is large and well-staffed. The organisation offers a 24-hour helpline, which is staffed at call centres across the country, one of which is at the Hatfield office. There is also an e-mail helpline. It works with parents, both individually and in groups, to support them with issues ranging from sleepless babies to adult children who refuse to leave home! The greatest number of calls is about teenagers and how to handle their challenging behaviour. Other services are information leaflets, an interactive website with message board and training for professionals.
One of the projects which the organisation is developing is called Be Someone To Tell. This focuses specifically on supporting parents and schools in dealing with bullying issues. Early outcomes from the project have been very promising and include;
Janine Shalev described to us what the approach of the Parentline plus support workers is, and it chimed very well with our own approach as mediators. What she described was the importance of a non-judgemental approach and helping each parent to identify what the real issues are for them, and to think about ways forward. There is also a string focus on meeting needs and acknowledging feelings.
We had many questions for Janine and felt that we had gained a deeper understanding of the services offered by this key organisation, which is one of our active partners.
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And this is the project on which we are currently working closely in partnership. The Mediation Project for schools and parents is an innovative approach which Herts County Council is piloting.
We now have a group of 12 people, some from our service and others from Parentline Plus, who will be training at the end of June to deliver this project in schools in Broxbourne and St Albans/Harpenden. Sue Banwell-Moore is running a tailored 3-day training course for us. As this is a completely new project, those involved will be in the forefront of shaping the delivery and developing a model which is workable and realistic – so quite a challenge for us all.
If anyone on the team would like to be involved in other ways, we do have a need for some volunteer office support and for skills which include producing leaflets, posters etc. Please let me know if you are interested and want to be part of this.
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You will have noticed on our Programme of Events that we have a practice day scheduled for Saturday July 12th. I have decided to postpone this event, as a number of mediators are involved in the Schools Project training a couple of weeks before that date. We will look at the possibility of holding a Practice Day in the autumn, and I will ask for suggestions for topics nearer the time.
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You may remember that we hoped to have a password-protected forum on our new website and, although this has not been completely forgotten, we have put it on hold at the moment because of the extra costs that it would have incurred for the service. We may look at setting up a web-based forum such as Grouploop to allow mediators to communicate with each other and to post documents for all to access and read – watch this space!
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