
It’s been a very busy and exciting couple of years for peer mediation. In October 2021 we were commissioned by Our Minds Matter, Fife to deliver peer mediation training for primary schools across the local authority area. Between then and January 2023 we delivered 17 two-day training sessions on a cluster basis, bringing together P5 and P6 pupils from primary schools who will eventually feed into the same high school. In this time we trained 430 pupils from 103 schools and an adult from each school also took part. We are delighted to have reached this many young people and to have offered them an opportunity to consider dealing with conflict in a more constructive, non-violent way. As a result of this, our research has suggested that around 50% of these schools now have a peer mediation service set up of some form and many others are in the process of getting this set up. This feels like a massive and unprecedented achievement for mediation in Scotland.
As a result of the success of the initial programme we were also asked by one of the clusters to deliver training to every P6 pupil – approximately 300 pupils – and this was delivered between October 2022 and January 2023.
The idea that this many schools, pupils and staff have been trained in peer mediation skills is massively exciting and feels like such a big opportunity to embed mediation and positive approaches to conflict not just in our schools, but more widely….imagine all of those people trained telling their parents or carers, grandparents, friends, siblings, teachers or anyone else about their experience? The messages have the potential to go far and wide through this approach and to raise the profile of a mediation approach to dealing with all types of conflict. We are keen to emulate this elsewhere…..where should we go next??? We’d love to hear your ideas!
Also, watch this space for a report of the Fife programme which will be available soon!
Thanks for reading.