On the 8th of October 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 Legal Aid presented 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. Duration of the Programme is 90 study hours, and it consists of 13 sessions that will continue from the 15th of October till the 20th of November 2024. The Coordination Centre for Legal Aid is the entity that will benefit from this training programme.
The training programme is being attended by 30 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.At the beginning of the event, Erlend Falch, Deputy Head of the Council of Europe Office in Ukraine, stated: «In September 2023, the Council of Europe Office in Ukraine signed the Memorandum of Co-operation with the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine and Coordination Centre for Legal Aid on the development and implementation of initiatives on child-friendly justice. This Memorandum is the next step in cooperation for implementing restorative justice with the participation of minors, making agreed decisions that meet the best interests of the child and contribute to the prevention of criminal offenses in Ukraine. The relevance of the event today relies in the fact that advocates will gain new knowledge and skills on child-friendly justice, restorative justice, mediation including relevant Council of Europe standards, and application of child-friendly procedures and practices based on specific simulations».
Oleksandr Baranov, Director of the Coordination Centre for Legal Aid, said: «The Coordination Centre started working on restorative justice 5 years ago. Thanks to restorative justice, children who have committed offenses and children who have suffered from offenses have the opportunity to recover, as the issue of recovery is very important to society. Today we are starting Specialised training of mediators with the support of the Council of Europe, and the Coordination Centre for Legal Aid is the entity that will conduct the training. Upon completion of the Programme, participants will receive relevant supporting certificates».
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 Programme consists of 7 modules, in particular: 5 modules on conflictological, emotional, communicative, reflective, legal, procedural competencies of a mediator for the preparation and conduct of mediation with the provision of the principles of restorative justice, and 2 modules on aspects of reintegration and resocialisation in the course of restorative justice involving minors.
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.
