Award for Quaker-led mediation scheme
'It’s an exciting time for peer mediation at the moment...'
There is ‘huge potential’ to grow peer mediation schemes in schools across the UK, Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM)’s peace education team has said.
‘It’s an exciting time for peer mediation at the moment, with an ever increasing need and appetite to train children and young people in conflict management skills,’ Ben Harper, BYM’s peer mediation national coordinator, told the Friend. ‘There’s huge potential to grow the work in both primary and secondary settings, as well as opportunities to think more broadly about how we upskill more children and young people with confidence to express their feelings and needs constructively.’
Children trained as mediators by a Quaker charity won a national award in Parliament last month. The National Mediation Awards on 12 December drew together those who had done ‘extraordinary’ work in the world of mediation.
Ben Harper told the Friend that three schools were nominated for the Peer Mediation Scheme of the Year. Those included ‘a scheme that has run consistently in a primary school for over twenty years in Sheffield; a scheme in Exning set up by a teacher who herself was a young peer mediator; and a scheme at Ocker Hill Infant and Nursery School in the West Midlands by children who are just six and seven years old. All were worthy winners, but it was Ocker Hill Infant and Nursery School, trained by [the Quaker charity] Peacemakers, who scooped the award,’ said Ben. ‘Ocker Hill is unique in being the only nursery infant school in the country to run such a scheme, and challenges any belief that mediation is purely the domain of adults.’
The peace education team said that the national recognition is a sign of how far peer mediation has come. ‘Peer mediation has been around in this country since the early 1980s and initially introduced into many schools by Quakers. Today, training is now delivered by a country-wide network of providers who train thousands of children and support schools to help peer mediators thrive.’
In September 2023, BYM attracted funding from The Sir James Reckitt Charity to employ a peer mediation national coordinator to build on the work of increasing the number of schemes operating in British schools. Work has included supporting the existing network of peer mediation training providers, working closely with the Civil Mediation Council on an accreditation pathway for children who are trained as peer mediators, and promoting peer mediation to new schools. It has also involved training teachers, adult mediators, and Quaker volunteers in how to implement and support new schemes. These courses have led to at least 500 new peer mediators being trained across thirty schools. BYM is now seeking further funding to ensure this work can continue.
Friends interested can contact contributions@quaker.org.uk.
