Neighbour / Community
When complaints in the community and between neighbours escalate, they can stretch resources, become costly, and potentially damage organisations. Our neighbour and community mediation service can help you resolve any outstanding disputes. This is a critical factor in complaint handling processes for organisations such as housing associations, police departments and local authorities.
Disputes in the community and between neighbours come in all manner of forms. Noise, damage, children, pets, borders, behaviour, parking, and personal relationships are just some of the factors that can lead to problems between people.
The benefits of using mediation to handle neighbour/community disputes
Our neighbour and community mediation service can prevent potentially costly and damaging complaints from spiralling out of control. We can help you get the right processes in place to prevent disputes escalating needlessly.
Mediation resolves issues quickly and it creates sustainable outcomes as it empowers the parties involved to reach their own resolution. It’s the mediators job to facilitate this, not to suggest or coerce people into any kind of decision.
Other important benefits of mediation are:
- It focuses on the people involved and gets them invested in the process
- Quick resolutions
- Prevents escalations
- Saves time, resource and trouble
- Improves lives
- Prevents complaints resurfacing time and time again
Mediation is a proven method to help neighbours and those in the community resolve their disputes.
How we can work with you
When you bring in third-party mediators, not only will you benefit from us taking the issue off your hands, it’s more impactful for the parties’ involved too. Bringing in professional mediators shows that you want to help them find a resolution to their issue. It’s a win-win.
We aim to provide the perfect setting for a constructive discussion that helps both parties reach a suitable outcome. Understanding each other’s concerns is key to this process. That allows us to facilitate a positive discussion to help the parties’ come up with ideas for how to end the dispute and reach a resolution.
It’s a good idea to get us involved as early as you can. That will reduce the chance of cases escalating to a place where court action may be required. Mediation is more effective the earlier you implement it. We partner with a lot of organisations to make sure we have a relationship in place ahead of time so that we can always get involved quickly. We can help you make mediation an integral part of your complaint handling process.
Whether you’re an existing partner or not, the mediation process starts with you simply referring the case to us. Then we:
1) Contact each party
To get an initial understanding of their viewpoint and what they would class as a positive outcome.
2) Arrange the mediation session
For a neutral venue. Unless circumstances require us to take an alternative approach.
3) Arrange follow up actions
Such as what is expected from each party.
4) Plan any additional mediation sessions needed
Most cases get resolved in a single session; others may need follow ups.
Who can benefit from using mediation to handle neighbour/community disputes?
This service is pivotal for housing associations, police departments and local authorities, but it’s available to any organisation who could benefit.
Contact us
We can make mediation a standard part of your dispute handling process. We can also work on an ad hoc basis. The earlier you implement mediation the more effective it’s likely to be, but it’s never too late to have a conversation. If you need our help or want to find out more about our neighbour/community mediation services, contact our team today.