Our service is dedicated to providing a friendly, confidential service to members of the local community offering mediation as a way of resolving disputes.
We give our service users the opportunity to resolve their differences in a non-confrontational way where everyone has their voice heard and the agreements are those of the people in dispute, not those of a third party, meaning that they have ownership of the agreements.
We provide those wishing to take part in mediation the time and a safe place to have these discussions. We are not part of any statutory organisation which gives us the advantage of being independent and impartial.
We believe that mediation skills are so valuable as a form of conflict resolution and as a life skill that we train local people with core mediation skills.
OUR VISION To reduce conflict in the local community through co-operation and understanding, thereby enhancing quality of life and well-being.
OUR MISSION To provide quality, affordable mediation services and training to help resolve disputes and establish greater understanding between neighbours, within families and within communities, working closely with local organisations.
Hastings and Rother Mediation Service was first set up in November 1995 to provide Neighbourhood Mediation to the residents of Hastings and St Leonards, and in October 2000 the service was extended to cover the district of Rother.
In December 2000 the service was formally accredited by Mediation UK and in 2004 it was awarded the Community Legal Service’s Quality Mark in Community Mediation – being the first mediation service in the country to achieve this status.
In 2003 the service was given funding by BBC Children in Need to start up an Intergenerational Mediation project which we called Time 2 Talk.
In 2008 we began Family Mediation and were awarded a contract with the Legal Aid Agency to provide legally aided mediation. This contract was subsequently extended to cover Eastbourne & Brighton and so we adopted the name Mediation East Sussex for our family mediation.
Mediation East Sussex is a member of National Family Mediation, the largest provider of family mediation in England & Wales.