Volunteers needed for noisy neighbour advice

Developed by community mediation service Mediation Plus in conjunction with Eastbourne Borough Council and Eastbourne Homes, the new Community Resolution Assessors will visit members of the local community who are experiencing low level anti-social behaviour - especially around environmental noise.

Volunteers will go through a specially designed Open College Network accredited training course delivered by Mediation Plus to provide the skills assessors will need to deliver this service to the local community. The training will provide an understanding of how conflict situations can arise, the different avenues available to resolve these issues and when a case is appropriate to be referred to mediation. These are transferable skills which will support the participants in other roles within their lives.

Once trained and accredited, assessors will meet with local residents who have been referred to the new service up to three times, and will receive on-going support from the Mediation Plus team in developing their new roles. Mediation Plus service manager Clive Gross said, “This is the culmination of over a years’ work with the Borough Council and Eastbourne Homes to develop this new service and we are delighted to now be ready to train our first group of volunteers.

“Similar projects training volunteer community assessors to help local residents resolve anti-social behaviour issues have been run very successfully by other community mediation services – such as New Forest Mediation in Southampton – and we hope this new development for Eastbourne will prove equally successful.”

Funding for training and supporting the first group of Community Resolution Assessors has been provided by the Eastbourne Borough Council Community Grants scheme and the Eastbourne Community Safety Partnership.

The course will be run across three consecutive Saturdays starting on March 5 at a central Eastbourne venue for up to 16 volunteers.

Anyone interested in being among the first trained group of assessors should contact Joan Eades, Mediation Plus training manager, on 01323 442781 or email [email protected] for an application form.

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