Training

CALM Mediation takes pride in the quality of its Volunteers, as we believe our Volunteers are the backbone of our Operations, and we're not afraid to admit that.

To ensure our Volunteers continue to provide an excellent service to the people of Calderdale, we train them using the accreditted course written by Mediation UK when it was in existence, and are currently researching options to provide OCN Accreditted Training to our Volunteers, at Level 3

The training provided is free and delivered by a professional trainer. It is rich with theoretical input and practical role plays. The course is 1 full day each week over a five week period, providing Mediators a total of 40 hours of in-house training.

As mentioned above, the course has been developed by the former Mediation UK, which was the national body of Mediation providers in the UK, but is not accredited by them anymore as they no longer exist. However, we are currently researching the option of providing the training through Open College Network (OCN) so we can provide our Mediators with a nationally recognised qualification for their efforts.

Some of the areas covered in the training include

• Confidentiality

• Risk Management

• Effective Communication and

• Equality and Diversity

It also includes lots of practice through role-plays, which provide Mediators with firsthand experience and a great insight to cases that our Mediators will come across. The purpose for the role plays is to prepare Mediators for dealing with various situations in a tactful and a professional manner. All mediators work in pairs, to gain better team work skills and collaborative working, as well as improving the strength of our team of Mediators. This also allows Mediators to learn from each other, hence developing their skills further.

Following the successful completion of the training our Mediators are challenged with Neighbour Disputes and Youth Homelessness Prevention cases. Every case allows our Mediators to further develop their Mediation skills as all cases are unique.
Our Mediators have found that skills gained from Volunteering with CALM Mediation significantly contributed to their life experience, as well as improving their social capacities of dealing with conflicts as well as communication in general.

In addition to this training, we also offer Volunteers other training opportunities such as Diversity Training and any other training they might need for their own personal development, for example, one of our Volunteers has recently completed an NCFE Accreditted Course in Equality & Diversity at Level 2, and another has been on an IT course to help them boost their skills.

To see what our Volunteers think about the training we offer, please click 'Next'.