News
Welcome to our news section. Our latest news will appear here.
Spotlight on our Service
This month, the spotlight is on the East Ayrshire Council’s Vibrant Communities service.
East Ayrshire is characterised by strong and active local communities, spread across a diverse urban and rural landscape. 120,300 people live in East Ayrshire in 55,400 households. 47% of the population (56,418 people) live in East Ayrshire’s largest town, Kilmarnock. 17% of the population are 0-15 years old; 62% of the population are 16-64 years old; 12% of the population are 65-74; and, 9% of the population are 75+. The population projection between 2018 and 2028 in East Ayrshire is set to decrease by 1.7%, in contrast to 1.8% increase across Scotland. Within East Ayrshire, we are expecting to see a 16% decrease of people living in the rural south of our authority and a 13% increase of those living in the urban north of our authority. This will see a projection in 2028 of 0-15 years old down 7.5 %; 16-64 years old down 0.8%; Age 65-74 up 0.3%; and, age 75+ up 25.3%. 10.9% of people live in the least deprived SIMD quantile [1], whilst 30.6% live in the most deprived quantile.
Vibrant Communities was born in 2013 and has evolved greatly since, throughout the evolution it has always kept true to working ‘with and for’ our local communities rather than ‘doing to’ them. Vibrant Communities is made up of Community Learning & Development, Housing Support, Early Intervention and Home Link Services. Our Communities Team, which is responsible for capacity building, community development and engagement across the Council has a full staff team of dual trained community workers and qualified mediators. When new staff come into the team they are put through extensive mediation training via Scottish Community Mediation Centre and Sacro.
Time to Talk Day 2025
To mark Time to Talk day the Scottish Community Mediation Centre puts a spotlight on neighbour disputes and mental health.
Talk with neighbour or community mediators around Scotland, and eventually you will hear about the rise amongst their clients of mental health issues in the past few years. There may be a range of contributing factors, from increased social isolation through to how we view the world around us. But whatever the causes may be, when two neighbours are in conflict, the impact of this conflict on their lives and those closest to them often includes their mental health.
In thriving communities, neighbours will often positively engage with each other, look out for one another and talk through any difficulties that they may have between them in a practical and peaceful way. Where those connections, those relationships, have not been built the danger is that a difficulty between two neighbours becomes not just a source of conflict, but something that impacts on their mental health.
In Scotland, disputes about noise have been the single largest type of dispute that community mediators come across regularly. The impact of noise on someone’s quality of living, their relationships around them and their sleep can be significant.
Service Spotlight: January 2025
Family and Community Mediation Argyll & Bute
Our service has been mediating in Argyll & Bute since 2004, throughout this time we have supported many families through times of crisis.
We are the second largest local authority area in Scotland with a vast area of 690,946 hectares that consists of four main regions: Bute & Cowal, Oban/Lorn & Isles, Mid Argyll/Kintyre & Islands and Helensburgh & Lomond. 47.2% is classed as rural, this area includes 28 inhabited islands with an total population of 85,953.
We have continually offered both in-person and online mediation as a rule due to the region’s demographics. Although, online mediation came to the forefront in 2020 after the first lockdown. All mediators received additional training to accommodate the demand for online mediation during this difficult time.
Listening to our learners
Last month all the trainers at the Scottish Community Mediation Centre met to review the previous six month’s training. We looked at what had worked well and explored what could be revised. In doing so, we read through the dozens of evaluations that learners had completed at the end of their course.
What stood out consistently was how much learners took away from the training. Whether it was having a difficult conversation with a work colleague, finding different ways to support clients or negotiating with a family member, people told us how helpful they found the skills taught.
This is always reassuring, but it highlighted an important point. Four years after we applied our expertise and experience to adapt our training materials for online delivery, it reaffirmed the positives of using online training as a training format.
Calendar of Events launched
We are pleased to say that our calendar of training events for 2025 is now launched.
New for this year is a series of workshops for mediators and restorative practitioners. Providing opportunities for continuing professional development, the first is on Mediation Theory and will be held in May.
We are offering an Early Bird Discount until the 14th February, with a reduced fee of £65.
More information can be found on our website.
RSS