Skip to content
Skip to main content

About this free course

Author

Share this free course

Principles and practices of peace education
Principles and practices of peace education

Start this free course now. Just create an account and sign in. Enrol and complete the course for a free statement of participation or digital badge if available.

2.3 Training peer mediators

A crucial role for adults who are establishing peer mediation in a school is training children and young people as mediators. The initial training can take 2–3 days, and support for mediators continues with ongoing supervision and check-ins. This means it’s important for school communities beginning their work on peer mediation to seek support from specialist agencies in the early stages. The box below contains links to some of the specialist agencies working in this area.

Agencies offering peer mediation training

Organisations such as Southwark Mediation Centre (part of Calm Mediation [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] since 2020), which you saw in the video, or Peacemakers, whose resources you began to explore in the previous session, have a wealth of experience and expertise in training children and young people in mediation. There are many organisations across the UK with this experience, such as Scottish Mediation. The Civil Mediation Council has a Peer Mediation Working Group, which is a UK-wide network of organisations that work to promote peer mediation. UNICEF also describes peer mediation programmes in schools outside the UK, such as these in Kosovo and Belarus.