Click here to see an archive of stories featured: 29/06/2004 - 29/06/2005
Click here to see an archive of stories featured: 29/06/2005 - 31/12/2005
Click here to see an archive of stories featured: 01/01/2006 - 04/06/2006
Click here to see an archive of stories featured: 05/06/2006 - 31/12/2006
When mediation fails, call a conflict coach |
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Sometimes a conflict can become so intense that those involved can't handle it. When possible, a mediator is called in. But if one party refuses to engage in the process, then mediation isn't an option. |
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A mixture of professionals, including lawyers, realtors, high school counselors, and church officials gathered for the first day of the three-day conference sponsored by the Inafa' Maolek mediation group. Unlike a mediator, a conflict coach deals with one party at a time, said Pat Wolff, executive director of Inafa' Maolek. |
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To read the story in full, please click here. (External Link)
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Lambeth's trail-blazing Peer Mediation project |
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Almost 20 schools are involved in a trail-blazing Lambeth Peer Mediation project. The service helps reduce conflict in schools and teaches children mediation skills. CBBC presenters, Abs and Rani will present the latest conference next Thursday (February 8). One hundred and fifty pupils from 20 Lambeth schools will flock to the event at Lambeth Town Hal from 9.30am to 2.30pm. |
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It will be a fun-packed day with music, dance, art and drama workshops, as well as providing a chance for children to meet peer mediators from other schools. The conference is being run by Healthy Minds with the support of Lambeth Education and Lambeth Mediation Service. |
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Healthy Minds is funded by Lambeth Children’s Fund and CAMHS. Councillor Sally Prentice, Lambeth cabinet member for children and young people, said: “Making school a more enjoyable learning environment has to be a good thing. To read the story in full, please click here. (External Link)
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Counterproductive regulations have increased the cost of conflict |
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The British government's attempts to formalise dispute resolution in the workplace have only succeeded in making managing conflict more complex and adversarial, a critical new report has claimed. The introduction of statutory dispute resolution procedures in October 2004 has failed to reduce the burden on the employment tribunal system and made it less likely that disputes will get resolved informally, according to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD). |
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The report, Managing Conflict at Work, reveals that conflict at work costs the average employer around 350 days of management time every year, as well as annual costs associated with employment tribunal claims of about £20,000, rising to over £210,000 for those employing 10,000 or more people. |
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One in three (29 per cent) of the 798 employers questioned for the research believe disputes are now less likely to be resolved informally following the introduction of the statutory dispute resolution procedures. To read the story in full, please click here. (External Link)
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Satyagraha conference begins Monday amid criticism |
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A two-day international conference on Mahatma Gandhi's historic Satyagraha movement organised by the ruling Congress beginning Monday is expected to spread the message of peace but has already drawn flak from opposition parties. In the conference which will be attended by representatives from 85 countries, Nobel laureates and eminent personalities would discuss and deliberate on the relevance in the 21st century of Mahatma Gandhi's methods of truth and passive resistance that won India freedom and also empowered many marginalized communities around the world later. |
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The conference, to be held at the Vigyan Bhavan convention centre, will be chaired and addressed by Sonia Gandhi, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson and Congress party chief. |
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Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will address the conference Tuesday at the concluding session. South African minister Essop Pahad would initiate a discussion on 'dialogue among peoples and cultures', while Italy's Deputy Prime Minister Francesco Rutelli would be the keynote speaker for the discussion on the non-violent approach to conflict resolution and peace building. To read the story in full, please click here. (External Link)
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Johnson: Children must be taught tolerance |
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Education secretary Alan Johnson has called for teenagers to be taught core "British values" after the Celebrity Big Brother race row.
Mr Johnson said the "ignorance and bigotry" shown towards Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty on the Channel 4 reality programme shows the need for schools to promote good community relations.
A government report, commissioned by Mr Johnson and chancellor Gordon Brown, will recommend compulsory citizenship lessons be changed to examine the idea of "Britishness". |
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Mr Johnson said teenagers do not learn enough about what it means to "British". |
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Mr Johnson added that while children must be taught about British history they should also learn about other cultures. To read the story in full, please click here. (External Link)
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OneVoice at Davos |
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On Thursday at Davos, in front of around 2,000 world leaders of politics, business and religion Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Tzipi Livni came together for an unprecedented public meeting – laying out their negotiating positions and their desire to take this process forward. They were brought together by a young but vastly expanding grassroots movement of Israeli and Palestinian citizens – OneVoice. OneVoice represents a rare coalition of Israelis and Palestinians from all sectors of society that are planning a civil movement to propel leaders back into negotiations. They are planning to make this the first of many diplomatic negotiations prompted by the grassroots of society. |
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Over 1,000 Israeli and Palestinian youth gathered in Ramallah, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and their leaders followed – appearing before them via video-link from the World Economic Forum in Davos to answer the questions ‘what do you need us to do?’ and, most importantly, ‘What are you willing to do to end the conflict?’. |
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President Abbas led with a bold statement that ‘we are ready as of now to start negotiations with our Israeli neighbors’ and Minister Livni was similarly forthright saying that it was not right that these leaders should be depending on the youth of OneVoice for hope that ‘it is our job to provide that hope (for our children)’. It is hard to think of a time when so called ‘enemy’ leaders are brought together by their own populations and if a process for conflict resolution did gain momentum today it will set a new historical precedent for mass public negotiations between populations and show a new level of political consciousness sweeping the Middle East. To read the story in full, please click here. (External Link) Visit OneVoice by clicking here. (External Link)
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The decibel Penguin prize 2007 seeks personal accounts of the experience of immigration to the UK |
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Penguin Books and Arts Council England join forces for the second time to give new writers the opportunity to showcase their work. decibel – an Arts Council initiative dedicated to promoting cultural diversity in the arts – and Penguin are inviting writers to submit non-fiction personal accounts of the experience of immigration to the UK for the competition. |
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The winning authors will see their stories published in a Penguin anthology entitled Volume 2: Personal Tales of Immigration to Britain in November 2007.The judging panel will be chaired by Brenda Emmanus of BBC London and will include Shami Chakrabarti, Director of Liberty, with further judges to be confirmed shortly. |
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decibel and Penguin are inviting competition entries of between 1000 and 5000 words in length, which are non-fiction personal accounts of the experience of immigration to the UK, and are aimed at an adult readership. There is no age limit for authors, who must not have had a full-length book published. The closing date for entries is Monday 2 April 2007, and the successful authors will be announced in early June. The anthology of the winning entries will be published by Penguin in November 2007. For more information , please click here. (External link)
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Lambeth launches new service to prevent youth homelessness |
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Lambeth Council's housing department has launched a new service for young people aged 16 and 17, and their families. |
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The Family Support Service - Conflict Resolution, will provide support and practical help in resolving conflict in the home. |
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The aim of the service is to encourage better communication between young people and their parents to stop arguments becoming a family crisis and prevent homelessness. To read the story in full, please click here. (External link)
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JRCT Peace Leadership Programme |
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This is a unique opportunity for people working as paid staff in the UK or
EU peace sector to benefit from a subsidised programme of high-quality
training. The heart of the course will be a four-day intensive residential
in Birmingham from 28-31 August 2007. |
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Preparation and follow-up activities will also be included. The programme will concentrate on improving strategic thinking, personal effectiveness and communication skills. |
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The course will also provide a wonderful opportunity to extend and strengthen networks between different workers in the peace field.
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Would you like to host the 2007 ipoweri National Anti-Bullying Conference for Young People in your region? |
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ipoweri are now starting dialogues with interested Local Authorities and organisations who would be interested in this innovative and exciting national conference and festival being produced by Actionwork in their region. Actionwork produced Britain’s first National Anti-Bullying Conference for young people in 2003, which was held with great success in Islington, North London. It has been an annual event since then. To date it remains the only national forum for young people to express themselves about bullying and victimisation. |
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The ipoweri conferences are events organised by young people for young people, and have a young management group to help achieve this. The aim is to produce the annual national conference in a different region of the country each year. |
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This allows regional groups to showcase their best practices in dealing with bullying to the rest of the country and abroad. We are currently looking for a forward thinking Local Authority or Organisation that would like the event to come to their region in 2007. This Local Authority must have anti-bullying high on their agenda, have a strong commitment to youth participation and youth advocacy and be willing to put in a substantial amount of funding towards the event. The Local Authority must also be willing to work alongside Actionwork to produce this event. If you would like to discuss this further please contact Andy Hickson To visit Actionwork on the web, please click here.
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Crushing the anger inside
17 January 2007 Hendon and Finchley Times |
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On my three-mile journey to my first anger management class, I found it necessary to beep my horn or gesture at my fellow road users on no fewer than four separate occasions. Perhaps I needed anger management specialist David Woolfson's advice more than I realised... There are many things in life that make me angry - people who do not say thank you', general incompetence, celebrities' who no one has ever heard of, Davina McCall, and England's thrashing in the Ashes, to name a few. |
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The prospect of sitting down with someone to discuss why I feel this way, and what can be done to calm me down, did not fill me with relish. Advertisement continued...
Anger Planet's consultation room is above a beauty salon called Utopia, just off Leicester Road, in East Finchley. |
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Trained by the British Association of Anger Management (BAAM), Mr Woolfson has been offering one-to-one sessions above Utopia since September last year. Group sessions are run from a larger centre in Swiss Cottage, but will soon take place in East Finchley or Muswell Hill. He also regularly appears on radio shows to offer advice on managing anger and conflict resolution. |
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To read the story in full , please click here. (External site)
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Advicenow.org.uk Launches New Service |
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Advicenow.org.uk is launching a new guide to family mediation. How mediation works explains what to expect at the first meeting with your mediator, what it feels like to take part in a typical mediation session and explores what can be achieved over the course of a few sessions. |
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| Advicenow.org.uk's family mediation expert Val Reid says: "I'm not surprised by the result of the web poll. Christmas is a real problem for a lot of families and couples often argue about where the children should wake up on Christmas day or how much to spend on presents." |  |
"Family mediation helps couples to talk to each other, with a trained professional, in order to make their own arrangements for the future. An agreement is much more likely to work if couples can sort everything out themselves through mediation, because they are in control of what is decided." How mediation works and the accompanying podcasts are available to download free of charge at www.advicenow.org.uk/familymediation. The guide also includes details of the Family Mediation Helpline. By calling 0845 60 26 267 couples in England and Wales can talk to trained staff and be put in touch with mediators in their area. The helpline is funded by the Department of Constitutional Affairs. |
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For more information, please click here. (External site)
More positive coverage from the Oxford Mail: |
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From would-be bomber to eloquent guru of peace |
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David Ervine, who has died suddenly, was one of the most interesting and unexpected figures of the Troubles, emerging from a violent organisation to become an advocate of peace and politics. |
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| He served as an articulate spokesman for working-class Belfast loyalism, his evident sincerity providing a stark counterpoint to a sub-culture increasingly dominated by money-grubbing drug dealing and other criminality. |  |
His commitment to conflict resolution, coupled with a brand of backstreet common sense, won him admirers in many quarters as he emerged from the loyalist paramilitary trenches, preaching dialogue and an end to Protestant negativity. |
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For more information, please click here. (External site)
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New Publication: |
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Sylvia Swinden's new book From Monkey Sapiens to Homo Intentional discusses the theory and practice of the non-violent revolution, comparing the cultural influence of concepts arising from the fields of humanism, psychoanalysis, sociology and behavioural psychology. It critiques social Darwinism as a mere theoretical justification for the concentration of wealth and power in a few hands and calls for an alternative understanding of the human psyche that could be used to produce desired social and personal transformations. |
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| The book posits that violence is for dummies and shows how different forms of violence oppress and suppress the human person. It sensitises the reader to ways in which language could be used to further the objectives of the powerful and also analyses some of the recent wars to show how commercial interests and the need to gain electoral advantages could trigger and sustain armed conflict. |  |
| It also warns about the misapplications and misinterpretations of science, arguing that science needs to be given a humanising direction to enable it to fulfil its humane role for humankind. The book proposes the notion of New Humanism in which humankind rather than money is the central value, and articulates a manual for non-violent education that could help activate human intentionality as a powerful tool to defeat mechanical inevitability. |
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For more information, please click here. (External site)
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Mediation demand on the increase |
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A mediation service which helps to resolve potentially volatile disputes between neighbours or family members is in more demand than ever. Community Accord Volunteers, set up two years ago, has taken on 20 new volunteers and has expanded to new premises in the last year.. |
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The Neighbourhood Renewal-funded service manages disputes between neighbours, relatives and members of the community. About ten months ago the service, which has its headquarters at the Carlisle Business Centre in Manningham, expanded to another site at Lawkholme Road in Keighley. |
 Kathryn Wichenden and Lorrainne Knott in Christmas spirits at mediation service Community Accord Volunteers |
To cope with extra demand, in September the group recruited 20 new volunteers, who have since had a hand in resolving a dozen serious issues. |
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For more information, please click here. (External site)
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