Youth Peer Mediation

Youth peer mediation is becoming very common in schools all across the world. As we know, conflicts happen anywhere. They can happen at home, in the office, on the streets, and having conflicts in school is no exemption. Conflicts in school are something that is common and there are certain degrees of these conflicts among students where peer mediation should come in handy.

The effects of such conflicts may disrupt the study skills to learn what they should be learning, and could even be a nuisance for their social life. To be more specific, student conflicts may not necessarily be of physical or psychological in manner and restricted to just school grounds; they may even be rooted from the students own home. When these situations occur, it is best that peer mediation steps in to play.

Peer mediation among the youth does not necessarily mean that the teachers and faculty are the ones that mediate issues and conflicts. To be honest, everyone around the students should take a major role in helping those that are in need of help, regardless of what conflict the students are in. This means that fellow students and parents are also involved in peer mediation.

To answer the demand for better and more efficient peer mediation, there are a number of schools that already have programs that help train students, faculty, and parents alike in peer mediation. This kind of program has been proven to be a very helpful way to keep conflict from further spreading and helping the student in need in ways that are unimaginable.

As mentioned earlier, there are different peer mediation programs that are available for everyone involved. One of the programs that are in effect is the one they call the student peer mediation. This kind of mediation is a more interactive approach since the mediators are the students themselves. These student volunteers have to go through the proper training so that mediation is done the right way. It is also good because it is a lot easier for students to relate to other students where there is no conversation barrier present.

Parents are also entitled to attend peer mediation courses where they are taught to approach their children and mediate their conflicts the right way. Since there is a possibility of gap between student and parent, this program helps in closing that gap and fixing conflict that is generally rampant at home.

There are peer mediation programs also for teachers themselves. This program is aimed to help the teachers understand the students in a more personal way. By doing so, they make it a lot easier for the students to cope up with their study skills regardless if the student is experiencing conflict of not. For the students, it is a good thing to know that the teachers know how to handle them.

Remember that the youth are usually misunderstood in so many ways. It is hard enough for students alike to get along with each other and having the grown ups handle their conflicts in ways that they will never understand could mean terrible results for the student himself.

More Information on Peer Mediation

  1. CRU Institute
  2. The Mediation Cente