Solving problems through mediation.

Community Justice Centres, a great way to resolve minor disputes.

Solving problems through mediation

Community Justice Centres were established by the government in 1980. They help resolve minor disputes, which experience has shown can be unresponsive to conventional dispute resolution procedures.

The purpose of Community Justice Centres is to provide a prompt, impartial and accessible informal dispute resolution service to all sections of the community through an informed appreciation of their needs.

A range of disputes are suitable for mediation including disputes with neighbours. These may involve disagreements over fences, drainage dogs, children's behaviour, racism, abuse or noise.

Family disputes can involve problems between a range of family members, for example couples parents, teenage children, grandparents, brothers or sisters.

In the workplace there can be disagreements that affect the harmony of the workplace — between colleagues or between employers and employees.

Sometimes there can be disputes between members of a voluntary or community organisation.

Disagreements can happen between partners in a business, or clients can be in dispute with a business over debts or unsatisfactory service.

Mediation is especially desirable where there is an ongoing relationship between the parties since it provides a way of people solving the problem and still remaining on good terms. However, is also possible to successfully mediate between strangers.

All mediations are conducted by accredited community mediators, selected, trained and supervised by CJCs. CJCs use a co-mediation approach in which two mediators conduct each session.

It is through this panel of mediators who are specifically selected for each dispute from a panel of people of many different ages, backgrounds, social, cultural and ethnic groups, that any effective transfer of dispute resolution skills to the community is guaranteed.

For more information follow this link to the Community Justice Centre website

"Please note this information was first published in Issue 10, NRMA Crime Prevention news, September, 2000."