Our secondary schools work has led us right into the heart of youth work, using social, educational and creative media to explore conflict, emotions, and mediation. Focussing on personal experiences, and with guidance from the young people on our Steering Group, we aim to work in a way that reaches young people on their own level.
What we do:
- Big Up Cool Down (BUCD) is an extended series of workshops, working in small groups, that aims to help pupils develop a greater understanding of how, as individuals, we deal with conflict, and how a change in attitude can have a positive affect on our lives, and at school.
- Peer Mediation (PM) is a focused series of workshops, for larger groups, that equips participants with the skills and techniques to resolve conflicts in the playground, and aims to establish the trainees as a valuable conflict resolution resource within their school.
- Truce 20:20 Stage 3 is the final stage of the Peacebuilders Workshop run in collaboration with Peace Direct. This stage provides Truce graduates with the opportunity to consolidate their skills, by co-facilitating workshops with staff from Conflict and Change, in secondary schools.
Past successes include a residential course with students from Brampton Manor School, one of our students featuring in Mediation UK magazine, and hundreds of students participating in BUCD and Peer Mediation training sessions so far. This year is also off to a flying start, with workshops running in 6 Newham schools,with exciting new Forum Theatre pilots planned for two schools in the coming terms.
Big Up Cool Down
These workshops are designed for young people aged who would benefit from learning about their emotions and how to deal with them in ways that have positive outcomes for themselves and others.
Involving drama, discussion, games, worksheets, and personal sharing, over an extended period the course aims to explore:
- What conflict is and the choices and consequences of how we respond to it
- Personal triggers for our anger
- Our feelings and needs in conflict
- Empathy, and how this can change our attitudes to conflict and others
- Calming strategies
- The power of effective communication
- Self awareness, and identifying our positive attributes as well as our negative ones
Peer Mediation
During the three days of training, participants will learn what it means to be a mediator, the self awareness the role involves, and the basic skills and strategies for helping others move forward positively from conflict. Through role-play and practice mediations, pupils will exepriment with:
- The Stepping Stones of Mediation
- Formal and informal mediation styles
- Summerising and questioning
- The language of feelings and needs
- What it means to be a good role-model
- Our own attitudes to conflict
- The skills and qualities needed to be a good mediator
Conflict & Change will work alongside a key member of staff at the school, training and supporting the students with how a mediation scheme can be integrated and developed in their school.
