Calm Mediation’s Chair of Trustees Chris Pickard looks back at a year of consolidation and change as we finalise our annual report and accounts, for the year ended 31 March 2024, in advance of submitting them to the Charity Commission.
Poorly managed conflict causes untold harm, hurt and cost to individuals and communities.
The work we do at Calm Mediation is incredibly important for the individuals we serve, and is often a highly cost-effective intervention for our funders, relative to the social and economic outcomes that are achieved. Like all community mediation services, however, we struggle to generate the revenue required to meet the needs of the communities we serve. This is why we need to become better at arguing our case for effective conflict resolution during a time of stretched public finances and oversubscribed applications for charitable giving. We must demonstrate the impact of our work on improving lives and preventing the escalation of problems that end up costing staggering amounts of money to fix.
“Our message is clear and compelling: Mediation plays a significant role in preventing homelessness, child poverty, crime and mental health crises; it helps families to function following relationship breakdown; it can support victims to recover and offenders to repair the harm of crime; and in improving attendance, behaviour and attainment in education”.
This year has been a period of consolidation and change
I’m glad to report that our finances are back in the black after last year’s deficit. In September, we said goodbye to our long serving Chief Executive Corinne Rechais, who did so much to put Calm Mediation on the map during her distinguished seventeen year tenure. The Board of Trustees embarked on an open recruitment campaign to replace Corinne that led to the appointment of Ed Procter. Ed is an experienced CEO who brings with him a track record of leading and growing third sector dispute resolution organisations. The Board of Trustees is working closely with Ed to create a new and exciting sustainable future for Calm Mediation.
Tracey Adamson and Alex Dunlop both stood down from the Board of the Trustees this year. I would like to thank them both for their contributions to the governance of Calm Mediation over the years. Meanwhile, we were thrilled to welcome Nikki Edwards and Mirka Wojnar as new trustees in November, bringing exceptional skills and experience in law, dispute resolution and learning & development to the Board.
We continued to operate the London-wide restorative justice service funded by Mopac. We passed a family mediation audit undertaken by the Legal Aid Agency with flying colours. We introduced our award winning peer mediation scheme into its first higher education setting at Goldsmiths University and continued to grow our community and workplace mediation services.
During the year we directly helped 1625 people, involved in 508 disputes across all London boroughs.
In 80% of cases a positive resolution agreement was reached. We’ve built community conflict resolution capacity by delivering 31 training and development sessions, attended by 495 delegates.
I was delighted to chair Calm Connect 2023, our annual conference held this year in October at Regents Park University.
It was fantastic to showcase the very best of community mediation, conflict resolution and restorative practice with speakers drawn from criminal justice, education, health and local government, along with Calm Mediation’s talented team of staff and volunteers. The event really brought home to me the quality of the work that we do in so many different sectors to prevent, manage and resolve community conflict all across London.
Conflict resolution is a time consuming activity that requires great patience and tenacity, coupled with highly tuned listening, communication and negotiation skills.
I would like to pay a heartfelt thanks to our volunteers, trustees and staff for their outstanding contribution in helping to give people consumed by conflict a chance for change. I would also like to thank our service users, funders and stakeholders for the trust they have shown in us this year.
We believe there is a strong human, social and economic argument for investing in community conflict resolution.
Community conflict resolution has a big role to play in making our society a better place. I hope you will join me in advancing the case for community mediation and restorative justice.
