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Nov 8, 2005
I am putting into practice some of what I learned at the training last week. When I have been speaking to participants on the phone I have been able to put people more at ease about the mediation process by talking them through it. Assuring confidentiality and impartiality etc. By doing that, I have set up three initial mediation meetings with assigned mediators. I have reflected on what I did in the past and put into practice what I can do now and it certainly seems to work better.
I am able to give reassurance, it feels good. I am also getting to grips with clients positions and interests. Where they are coming from and what they need to be able to resolve a situation, so clearly looking at feelings and needs and trying to identify the commonality between the parties. Although the training is workplace mediation it translates equally well into community mediation too.
Posted at 07:57 am by holyward
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Oct 31, 2005
This case was referred through Connexions and involved J a 14 year old whose neighbour had complained to him about music noise. On occasions the police had been involved. J's view was that the neighbour did not like him and would do anything to complain and atagonise the situation. The family had lived in the area for 14 months but did not have any kind of relationship other than through complaints being made by the neighbour. J;s mother was happy that he had taken some responsibility and was working with Connexions to try and improve the situation. Mum also suggested that they had been in a similar situation in their previous house and had fallen out with the neighbour. The situation may have been compounded by J's suffering from ADHD, meaning that he is porne to temper outbursts.
As a community mediation, although it wasnt clear from the start, S and myself referred to how they wanted the sitiation to change, J came up with suggestions of what he could do to stop an antagonistic relationship from getting out of control. Walk away from the situation, keep the music down to a reasonable level. The conversation was steered round to parental involvement which transpired that j would like his parents to speak to the neighbour on his behalf. It suggested that J nay not have been comfortable dealing with the sutuation himself.
When talking about further meetings, it transpired that Mum would like the opportunity to talk to the meighbour via a facilitation through mediators. As this is the case , I will write to party 2 with an invitation to meet with mediators to discuss the current situation. This will be with a view to proceeding to full mediation. Watch this space!!!!!
Posted at 12:24 pm by holyward
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Oct 16, 2005
Been continuing with my PDP and found a couple of interesting post I can apply for. Still worried about getting old though. I know it shouldnt make a difference but I am sure it does.
The self-esteem stuff Ive been doing is useful as I am learning a lot about myself and how I can cope with being me.
Had a great day yesterday met Dad and had tea with R. It makes me realise that Dad is getting quite frail now and we always wonder how long we will have him for. Just know that I love him to bits despite not kowing him that well until now. He hasnt got a clue about his party , thinks he's just getting a lice of cake and a cuppa. He,he, he. Hope he will like what we have planned. The cake's organised, his reclining chair has been ordered and tha party 's planned. Just the invites to go out. Cant wait to see his face.
My gradution is in three weeks time, I'm quite excited about it. however still waiting for Uni to email about the filming. Dont know what has happend there. I'll try and keep this up to date.
Posted at 02:23 pm by holyward
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Oct 12, 2005
Ive been really quiet of late I suppose just taking time out. Things are happening at work at the moment eg; funding sources for next year. Had an interesting meeting ti discuss what services that we can seel as an organisation. I believe I came up with some good ideas so that at the moment we are looking as though we could become a very marketable organisation.
( Might mean that I stay where I am for the time being as I am quite excited by it all.) Atlast I can see some progress and I dont feel quite so bad or mixed up after all. Must be the PDP work Ive been doing, Well done G for helping me to see the light through the trees.
Posted at 02:27 pm by holyward
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Sep 15, 2005
Its been quite quiet lately, however French is going well and I am really enjoying learning. I hope if we visit early next year I will be able to use my new skills.
Gha been rather self-centred in the last coupple of weeks,so haf to deal with that. Labret piercing and all that and getting retainers organised not knowing which size she will need. D is moving and needs some furniture. So will find some help there.
Got my counselling books organised. Will be reading and preparing during the next year before the counselling course if it happens. Will be looking at APU.
Havent heard from G so dont quite know whats happening there. Spose something will happen soon. May have entered the end of the road there. Not sure! Still it has been helpful.
Posted at 06:30 am by holyward
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Sep 10, 2005
Okay, so last week E and I did a mediation with R and Mum and bro, it was the second time we had called for this appointment and atlast R was in. He is an extremely angry young man,however, I believe he has a lot to be angry about, I've seen such anger before in my own son. Following our visit, which I don'k think was handled well, R attacked his Mum and the police were called . R has now been chucked out of home for a second time and is not allowed back. If I look at Maslow's 'Hierarchy of needs' I believe R is at the holding level. ( If I am to look at this using Pyschodynamic theory I will need to do a bit of research as I am not familiar.) E had challenged hi mand he did not like it, it was apparent that the anger was building throughout the session.
Following this mediation, I asked if it would be possible to have some further counselling training. I believe it is needed not only to protect eh clients but also to protect ourselves during the mediation process. As mediators we need an understanding of what is going on for the client.
Having done some research into courses, following some feedback from G, who gave me a contact number, it seems that I have left it too late for this year. I will need to apply at Christmas for next Septembers entry. In the meantime I will prepareby doing some reading and research. It may help to support me in the meantime.
I am exploring a biytabou myself too. Since fininshing uni I have felt really down and uncertain about the future. The names I have already put to that are fearful, insecure, lacking in self-esteem. This worries me somewhat . R mentioned that it could be due to the fact that I have suffered a loss, seems somewhat daft but also relevant as I have focussed life totally in the last 5 years on study and at the momnet I do not have that. However having fone the wheel of life it has exposed some missing areas that need a focus, but I am not quite sure how to approach that at the moment. Perhaps this is something I can work through with G.
Posted at 03:15 am by holyward
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Sep 3, 2005
Been feeling quite down since I completed my degree becuase I suppose I achieved almost my ultimate goal and I'm not sure where to go from here. Have been working with G which is helping me to look at future goals, however because of this work I am now aware that there is a huge gap where creativity should be. Whilst studying I completely shut that side of my life out and I believe that I amd others have suffered becuase of it. ' I need it back'!
G talked to me about fear and that is a big part of why I feel blocked so I have started to work on that. ' What if the world were to end tomorrow, what would I have missed doing becuase I had denied myself the creativity I deserve.?'
Strange isn't it, as soon as I identified this I started to clear my wardrobe of the grey and beige in it, not all but some of the stuff that was really old and depressed. I need the colour back!
Also watched the Cambridge festival on TV last night, somewhere I have always wanted to visit. R and I decided that we will next year. The music moved me to tears becuase I could sense that the performers were not there to look beautiful and to sell records they lived and believed in their music. And, it was clear their audience did too. I want some of that!
Okay, so enough about me. During my wirk as a mediator, this week, I met a young man whose life he was destroying along with that of his family. He threatened my colleague and I with a knife. However I wasnt totally afraid, as I could see the emptiness and anger he was experiencing in his life.
R is a handsome young man, but incredibly tiny for a young man of 16. he appears to be extremely intelligent and has an argument for everything. R is fast heading for the criminal world and already faces 8 charges for burglary. It has been my meeting of him that has lead me to seek further counselling training as mediation is not enough!
Posted at 01:44 am by holyward
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Sep 2, 2005
Okay, so I have felt better this week having spoken to G, who I am doing some personal development work with. I thought I could do this work on-line, and to some extent I have, however I have found that it has been very useful to talk to G directly.
( Will look at getting SKYPE installed.)
Right then, what have I identified as a way to move forward? Following a couple of very intense mediation sessions with Y/P's, I strongly believe that I require more in depth training in order to manage the mediation setting. Many emotional issues arise during these sessions and it is important that they are managed in a proffessional and empathic way whilst still remaining in the role of mediator. It is later that a counselling role could be introduced. So it is with this in mind that I have been exploring tcounselling training opportunities. It is very expensive but I am sure this is the way to go. I have transferable skills that will support this learning.
I believe this is a very important area to address as B/M as an organisation expect that volunteer mediators will undertake mediations in this field and it is also important that all mediators receive a certain level of support following a hefty session. This does not happen at the moment despite having been asked for in the past.
R and I started our French conversation classes this week. I really enjoyed it. This is in preparation for our move to France in the future. I believe we need this goal to look forward to even if it doesn't happen immediately. I'm practising all the time.
Haven't heard from G regarding my last posting and Im not sure what we are going to move on to. She helped me to relieve the pressure on myself by getting me to look at what I do like about my job, there is quite a lot and that is apart from the salary. The suggestion is maybe that I stop looking at the jobs pages for a while. My bugbear is that I seem to be on my own in the office an awful lot. 7.25 hours alone can be very tedious too.
Posted at 04:56 am by holyward
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Aug 26, 2005
I facilitated a family mediation the other night and had great difficulty managing the behaviour that was taking place. I am aware that I should have stopped the mediation and bring clients to the ground rules but I found it almost impossible to do. I kept reminding the parties that each would have a turn to speak but they just resorted to a slanging match all the time, and screaming at each other. This appeared to be normal behaviour.
If I encounter this again I will remember to use my voice to calm the situation and if necessary stop the mediation until sich times as the parties have calmed down. It was clear however that both parties needed to be apart from each other but that they wanted to maintain a realtionship as parent and child. Another mediation can be arranged in about 1 month's time should the parties feel they need it.
Having a little understanding of NLP is helping me to get through the mediation process as I can model my questions to get the responses that show the parties are gaining some understanding of each other.
Posted at 02:17 am by holyward
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Aug 25, 2005
I keep trying to do the PDP exercises but there seems to be a block that is not allowing my thoughts to flow freely. I can see the long-term future ( about 5 years) but it is the short term I am having difficulty with despite trying to work backwards. It may be that there is more than just me involved in the long term so to sparate myself from the others is the problem.
I have a good job which is well paid so to earn more I would have to look elsewhere. Sometimes it seems that ' It is better the deveil you know.' Also, I am concerned about my age and whether I can realistically expect to be employed by another company. The question I am asking of myself is that self employment may be another alternative, or , combining the two in order to earn enough to finance the future plan of living and working in France?
There is little scope to develop in my present role as I work in a very small team of three.I have achieved two salary increases this year, and, yes I know it looks as if I am being greedy but I believe I need to realise atleast £25000 to have a chance of buying a house in France at this time.
The restrainers on doing it now are:
Little experience of speaking French
Enough money
G's education
High unemployment in France
So I will continue to think and use the mindmaps and also will keep in touch.
Posted at 04:35 am by holyward
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