National Mediation Awareness Week - Mediation Twitter Q&A

[Caroline]

This week is Mediation Awareness Week in the UK and to celebrate we decided to host a live Twitter Q&A session with our friends and colleagues Andrew and Craig (Cyrenians mediators).

Thankfully we didn’t have any radio silence and the hour flew by with questions coming in.

We wanted to keep the conversation going so below are a list of the questions that were asked during the session. Feel free to share your thoughts on one or all and get involved.

• What is the trickiest part of the mediation process?
• Do you have a favourite mediation story you can share?
• What would you say to folks worried about being in the same room as the person they’re in conflict with?
• What is there are safety concerns, for example prior physical or mental abuse?
• What is the best way to help young people understand what is involved in mediation?
• What are your most memorable outcomes from mediation?
• Why did you become a mediator?
• It’s sometimes hard to compromise or listen to others in conflict. What happens in mediation to address this?
• How long would you say parties should expect mediation sessions to last?

Thank you to everyone who took part in our Q&A today. We really appreciate you taking the time out of your busy schedules to get involved and ‘spread the mediation butter’ (Thanks the CALM mediator for this saying!)

The SCCR is a national resource promoting and supporting best practice in family conflict resolution, mediation and early intervention.

[AbbeyKrause]

With my mediator hat on … I would say the trickiest part of mediation is when people come together to talk. It’s an incredibly brave thing to do but by the time you do come together you should feel prepared, supported and know what to expect. The mediator you are working with will spend time with you individually, preparing for a joint session.

There are a lot of elements to the preparation but some of the things the mediator will help you reflect over include;

• Helping you to clarify what the disagreement is about
• What the key issues are you would like to discuss
• What will make things better for everyone involved
• How are you going to get to where you want to be

Preparation also means that the mediator will help you to think about HOW you want to say things to each other. Their job is to help both or all of you to talk to each other and to have a conversation that is different to what has perhaps happened in the past.