{"id":8612,"date":"2025-09-23T16:15:05","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T15:15:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/law-news\/?p=8612"},"modified":"2025-09-23T16:15:05","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T15:15:05","slug":"teaching-teens-to-tackle-conflict-mediation-skills-for-local-college-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/law-news\/teaching-teens-to-tackle-conflict-mediation-skills-for-local-college-students\/","title":{"rendered":"Teaching Teens to Tackle Conflict: Mediation Skills for Local College Students"},"content":{"rendered":"

The word of the moment appears to be \u2018mediation\u2019.\u00a0\u00a0 Ever since Churchill v Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council [2023] EWCA Civ 1416<\/em><\/strong>, mediation has become a necessary consideration for anyone involved in civil disputes.\u00a0 Family mediation has also been a pre-condition to bringing certain types of cases to family court for some time.<\/p>\n

Kent Law School<\/a> has offered mediation training to its law students, as part of its lawyering skills programme<\/a>, for many years, before it became fashionable.\u00a0 Our module is also the only one accredited by the College of Mediators as an introduction course to law students.<\/p>\n

Avoiding expensive legal proceedings is the main reason why people mediate.\u00a0 However, as Darren Weir<\/a> (Accredited Mediator and Director of Lawyering Skills) explains, the skills of a mediator have many other uses.<\/p>\n

For just over a year, Darren has been volunteering with Ashford Mediation Service (AMS) who provide free mediation services to the residents of Ashford and Kent.\u00a0 Recently, AMS were approached by Ashford College to see if they could provide training to student programme reps (aged 16-19) on conflict resolution.\u00a0 It became apparent that the skills of a mediator are useful when dealing with conflicts in a college environment.\u00a0 Having taught university students for fifteen years and teaching mediation at Kent, Darren was asked to help a team of AMS mediators to put a short course together.\u00a0 Darren and the team delivered 6 hours of training to the students.\u00a0 The aim of the course was to equip them with the skills to be able to recognise conflict before it escalated and then deal with relationships during the aftermath of a flair up.\u00a0\u00a0 The training used several different games, and role plays to build student confidence and arm them with the tools and language needed for many situations.\u00a0 \u00a0The students appeared to get a lot from it as affirmed by this student who said,<\/p>\n

“Going into it, I thought it wasn\u2019t going to be all that good, but I was wrong. It was actually, really fun, and I would have loved to have had more lessons. I enjoyed the fact they had us get involved and did many different activities each week. The games were my favourite. I learned a lot from the conflict de-escalation project and will now have those skills for the rest of my life. I\u2019m glad I got the opportunity to do it\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The short course clearly impressed the college as Darren and the team of mediators from AMS have been approached to provide similar training to 32 members of staff at the college.<\/p>\n

Darren Weir said, \u2018It became clear to me early on in this project that the core skills that I learned myself as a mediator and what I do with the students at Kent had the potential to have a wider impact.\u00a0 It has therefore been an exciting opportunity for me to use my experience and ability to train young people in this project.\u00a0 To then get asked to come back and develop something else for the teaching staff was the icing on the cake.\u00a0 As an academic on an Education, Scholarship and Practice Contract, I am always looking for ways at how what I do in my academic career at Kent can be used in other ways\u00a0 Developing an educational programme through this different lens has been a fun part of my scholarship development and I look forward to seeing where else it may lead.\u00a0 Next, it looks like we could be using the same core mediation skills to help front line council workers at Ashford Borough Council. \u00a0It has also been good to be doing this locally as it fits in precisely with the University\u2019s civic mission. \u00a0This would not have been possible had we not developed a mediation module and a broader lawyering skills programme at Kent Law School in the first place.\u00a0 It really does illustrate how forward-thinking Kent Law School is.\u00a0 I predict exciting times for mediation at Kent.\u00a0 Watch this space.\u2019<\/p>\n