Scottish Mediation is here to help you
This is a challenging time for everyone and the isolation and stress of living in close quarters can cause, or increase conflict for families, friends, and roommates, and can create challenges for work teams, charities and businesses and more, writes May Millward project officer at Scottish Mediation.
I am really excited to let you know that Scottish Mediation has introduced a temporary service to help with these challenges and to take into account the financial difficulties caused by Covid-19. This service would be of interest to any landlords or tenants who are experiencing conflict related to Covid-19.
Mediators from the Scottish Mediation Register have offered their services pro bono for individuals and organisations with less than five employees and at a heavily discounted flat rate of £300 per day for organisations with more than five staff. The mediations will be delivered by telephone or online.
The Scottish Mediation Covid-19 Service is appropriate if:
• at least one of the parties live in Scotland
• the conflict is connected to social distancing or self-isolation
• all of the people in the conflict agree to participate in mediation.
Conflicts that might fall within this scope include:
• landlord/tenant
• neighbours
• flat mates/housemates
• cooperative or social housing
• family matters including care of older relatives
• workplace concerns related to working from home or shared workspaces.
It is possible that some issues may have existed before and were being managed successfully but the additional pressures have pushed them into conflict.
Conflicts that would not be within the scope of the service would be:
• family cases around divorce and separation including those relating to child contact
• pre-existing conflicts where a process has already started
• conflicts where there is a history of domestic violence.
Scottish Mediation will advise on individual cases and if an enquiry is not eligible will, where available, signpost to an appropriate alternative resource.
Access is through Scottish Mediation’s usual channels:
Website: www.scottishmediation.org.uk
Email: admin@scottishmediation.org.uk
Scottish Mediation Helpline: 0131 556 8118
As we are all working from home we are encouraging the use of email and the website as the Helpline will be on answer-phone and we may take longer to respond.
