Mediation instead of punishment: new way of countering school violence

Recently, the Interregional Forum of School Mediation Practitioners “Life Without Conflicts” was held in Kyiv to welcome more than 160 participants from all over Ukraine.

Recently, the Interregional Forum of School Mediation Practitioners “Life Without Conflicts” was held in Kyiv to welcome more than 160 participants from all over Ukraine.

The event was organized by the Civic Union “Legal Development Network” with the support of the International Renaissance Foundation.

Forum participants shared the experience of implementing mediation as an effective and constructive way of solving conflicts, countering violence and bullying in the school environment.

The event participants were presented the results of the project “Development of School Services of Understanding within the framework of the Legal Development Network”.

Due to the project implementation the following was achieved:

  • To establish communication between offices and School Services of Understanding in five regions of Ukraine: Kherson, Kharkiv, Vinnitsya, Volyn and Odessa;
  • To launch 38 School Services of Understanding;
  • To train 250 mediators from among students and teachers;
  • To train 42 project’s own trainers-facilitators;
  • To involve more than six thousand children in 22 educational institutions;
  • To create environment in the Internet (to launch blogs and create pages of School Services of Understanding on Facebook).

EllaPetrenko, Head of the Project “Development of School Services of Understanding within the Legal Development Network”: “School statistics show that the degree of offences and violence among school children is escalating, while traditional disciplinary methods of solving conflicts appear to be not efficient anymore. In this situation, mediation plays a positive role when conflicts are solved through productive communication rather than violence”.

The event was held within the framework of the project “Development of School Services of Understanding within the Legal Development Network” implemented by  NGO “Bilozersky Center for Regional Development” in partnership with members of the Legal Development Network, in particular: NGO “Podilsky Center for Human Rights”, NGO “Right”, NGO “Center of Community Development”, NGO “Human Rights Center for Roma”, NGO “Foundation of Rural Communities of Dvorichansk”,   NGO “Skadovsk, my native land”, Information Resource Center“Legal space” with the financial support of the International Renaissance Foundation.

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