Between 5 - 8 November 2024, the Council of Europe Project “Protecting the Rights of Ukrainian Children during and in post-war context”, in cooperation with the Coordination Centre for Free Legal Aid, held the face-to-face session within the framework of the Specialised training programme of mediators “Mediation in restorative justice involving minors”, developed by the team of international and national experts of the Council of Europe. The Coordination Centre for Free Legal Aid is the entity that will benefit from this training programme.
The main goal of the Programme is professional specialization of mediators to provide mediation services in the field of restorative justice involving minors in criminal proceedings.
The methodology of the programme combines face-to-face and online work, the use of digital tools, as well as various formats of group and individual work, that ensure interactive and effective training aimed at deep assimilation of new knowledge and the development of professional competencies of mediators.
The Programme consists of 7 modules, in particular: 5 main modules on conflictological, emotional, communicative, reflective, legal, procedural competencies of a mediator for the preparation and provision of mediation based on the principles of restorative justice, and 2 additional modules on aspects of reintegration and resocialisation in the course of restorative justice involving minors.
During the face-to-face session, mediators were trained on Module 5, which covers the legal, reflective and procedural competencies of mediators during the preparation of and providing mediation in a criminal law conflict.
The face-to-face session was attended by 28 mediators who intend to cooperate with the free legal aid system and provide mediation services to resolve the conflict in criminal proceedings between the victim and the juvenile suspect (accused), as well as mediators included in the Register of Mediators engaged by free legal aid centres.
In the framework of the training programme, mediators undergo a mandatory confirmation of the acquired competencies (knowledge assessment), based on the results of which the Coordination Centre will decide on issuing a certificate of specialised mediator training to the mediator in accordance with the requirements of Article 10 of the Law of Ukraine "On Mediation".
The Council of Europe Project “Protecting the Rights of Ukrainian Children during and in post-war context”" is implemented by the Council of Europe within the framework of the Council of Europe Action Plan for Ukraine "Resilience, Recovery and Reconstruction" for 2023-2026.
