West Sussex Mediation Service

WHY A MEDIATION SERVICE STARTED

Our service was the brainchild of a Crime Prevention Officer in Horsham back in around 1999-2000 (Nigel Tickler) who, through some research, determined that about 5% of frontline Police time was spent going to repeat calls to the same addresses/neighbourhoods regarding neighbour disputes, giving words of advice or ‘banging heads together’ but not having to ‘feel collars’. However, this was not addressing the underlying causes of those conflicts. He believed that by forming a mediation services these cycles of conflict could be broken and the demand on Police time reduced. He secured some ‘pump priming’ funding from the Police, Council and WSCC to train 9 mediators and launch the service. We now have 50+ mediators and cover the whole county. In addition to the police, the bulk of our referrals are self reported and from housing associations, the council and others. As well as community mediation which is free of charge, we also cover intergenerational disputes, family (pre-divorce) mediation, workplace mediation and civil mediation and these are currently being delivered online when self distancing requires it.

How important are donations and fundraising for your organisation? We don’t have a high profile and provide our confidential services quietly in the background. We are not the sort of charity that individuals would naturally gravitate towards. This makes fundraising difficult. We have a very small office staff - our service co-ordinator, Nick, plus three parttime colleagues who help manage the 330+ annual referrals - hence the challenge of fundraising support as we don’t have a team of dedicated fundraisers. Every pound we receive is important to us.

www.wsms.org.uk