By Freddie De Luca, Director of Development at Calm Mediation
I am pleased to look back, with a broader lens, over the successes and challenges of the outgoing year.
Workplace Service
Our Workplace Mediation service has continued to grow steadily, attracting a wide range of charity, local authority and education provider clients, as well as several from across ‘the arts’, resulting in some interesting cases to work with.
We have noticed a significant increase in the incidence of matters where one or both clients considers themselves to be neurodivergent. The flexibility of the mediation process has been an immense benefit to ensure that all our clients are offered a process which meets their needs and gives the best chance of a positive outcome. Our mediation and facilitated conversation (for teams) options have been supplemented by an effective ‘Coaching for Conflict’ provision, to support individual clients.
A big ‘Thank you’ goes our Workplace Panel Mediators, who have supported a shift in our process to work directly with the clients at an earlier stage. Also ‘Thank you very much’ to Dawn, who has provided case management support and a serene approach, no matter the challenge!
Extending the Family Service
The biggest changes occurred in the Family Team. After a decade providing mediation for divorce, separation and child arrangements cases, we finally hung up our boots. This was largely due to the challenges associated with legally aided cases – we are still involved in a national campaign to improve the administrative burden and stagnant (for over 20 years) rate of pay in this sector: mediation4all.co.uk
Our outstanding Senior Family Mediator, Ursula Little, anchored the service for the whole decade and we offer a huge thank you to her for her commitment, guidance and humour throughout. It was also farewell to Simeon Costa, who joined to do his accreditation portfolio with us and soon became a core team member, offering exceptional client care. We are pleased to say they both still work nearby and we have a successful ‘signposting’ partnership for our mutual services. It is also a pleasure to update that our wonderful, patient, Family Coordinator, Alison, is now excelling in the Peer Mediation team as well as taking over much of our office management (very effectively!).
The ‘Family Mediation’ service has now become the ‘Extended Family’ mediation service (which includes inter-generational mediation). Many families face difficulties, with differences of opinion and long term challenges leading to emotional outbursts and estrangements. This time of year can be particularly difficult as there are increased expectations for time with relatives. We have volunteer mediators who are experienced in this field, including two Elder Mediators (there are only 4 in UK) for cases where age-related issues are part of the dispute.
Does this ring a bell for someone you know? If so, do share our ‘Extended Family’ service information.
Training & Practitioner Engagement at Calm Mediation
Our 2025 highlight was the Calm Connect Conference on 9 October. We were joined by an audience which included educators, corporates, local authorities, unions, housing providers and many more, alongside lots of volunteers. Our panellists represented a range from primary schools, to peer mediators and parents, legal specialists and a psychologist. The clear message was that mediation and restorative justice are more visible, and their benefits better understood, than in recent decades. This is an encouraging evolution.
The training service has faced challenges with raising the profile of our courses, partly due to growing commercial competition (the flip side of increased awareness of mediation’s benefits!). This has prompted us to generate some fresh approaches – changes to website pages, direct booking, new social media channels and more in the pipeline.
Exceptional Quality Courses
What hasn’t changed is the exceptional quality of our courses. I am delighted to have a chance to say a wholehearted thanks to Mirka Wojnar who has co-trained the ‘Become a Mediator’ courses for three years and to Richard Hills for his careful revisions of the Mediation Manual for each course – both have put in additional days of dedicated preparation and constructive suggestion, resulting in the excellent feedback we receive, both for the courses and the care we take with supporting our delegates.
Our core course types are:
- Become a mediator
- Convert to a new mediation specialty
- Conflict resolution skills development
- Constructive Conflict series
The last one is new for 2025 – live online sessions (4 x 1 hour), supporting colleagues, managers and frontline workers to be confident and effective in difficult conversations.
If you are interested in a course or would like to share the opportunities, you can find more here.
Practitioner support and engagement
With over 150 volunteer practitioners on our panels, the ‘engagement’ element is substantial, to support confident interaction with our systems and for camaraderie with other volunteers and the staff team. Matilda has taken the reins, following her arrival in late 2024, to progress and streamline volunteer engagement with Calm services. The DBS and Supervision programmes have been boosted and over 30 new Practitioners have been inducted (with a more personal onboarding process).
Our Supervision programme’s 1:1 and ‘Peer Exchange’ group sessions are possible due to the expertise and support of a team of experienced Calm practitioners, to whom we extend our sincere appreciation: Tracey, Letitia, Patricia, Kamlesh, Martin H, Sarah P, Mirka and Jo Winters. The programme is supplemented wonderfully by Jo’s “Topic-based Group Supervisions”, for which many thanks.
Best of all, ‘Practitioner Socials’ have restarted, with a great turnout at a variety of venues – the chance for a chat with fellow mediators (and no doubt the attraction of the popular ‘pub quizzes’) has been a highlight.
Heads up that the ‘National Gallery’ social will be on 20 March next year. Many thanks to former volunteer, Heather, who kindly researches and leads this for us each year.
Overall, it’s been a year of refining and promoting our services, which has been fundamentally reliant on the amazing staff team and our stellar volunteer practitioners. These are exceptional people, committed to a paramount cause of reducing conflict and increasing peace through giving a voice, a choice and a chance for change. On that note I wish you a peaceful and fun festive season and look forward to fresh ventures in 2026! 
