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Meet Elaine Hepburn – Dispute Resolution Advisor

Elaine is an experienced dispute resolution advisor and mediation trainer.
by Panos Papakostis | 11th Jan 2012

Background

Elaine is a skilled mediator who joined TCM in October 2011.
She is passionate about facilitating people who are in conflict to be able to hear each other, to grow in mutual empathy and to find lasting solutions. We sat down to get to know Elaine a little bit better and she was more than willing (as always) to answer all our questions.
 

  • How long have you been involved in mediation and how do you feel about it?

I love mediation. Put simply, I think it offers people the opportunity to understand each other better. It helps turn destructive conflict into constructive insight and solutions. The powerful self-learning and shift in relationships can at its best also be transformational - and it is very rewarding to be able to help facilitate these positive changes for people, and in a satisfying relatively short time-frame. I have been an accredited mediator for just over a year, but before that I was teaching conflict resolution in schools and on a wider scale, I think I have actually been mediating informally in my personal and professional life for many years.
  • How do you use mediation in your personal life?
Well, generally speaking, I stop being a mediator when I leave work. Dealing with other peoples’ conflicts and strong emotions is very tiring, and I often need to switch off completely, get a big battery re-charge! Also, when you mediate and train mediators regularly in the art of being fair and impartial you need sometimes to vent your own needs and be completely carefree and unaccountable!

  • What first attracted you to mediation and how did your friends and family respond?

I worked for a young persons’ homelessness charity for many years, where I saw the extremely sad and destructive affect that conflict had on vulnerable young lives- often arguments at home at this age led to parents feeling they couldn’t cope and eventually throwing their teenager out of home. I was offered training in mediation with TCM and was amazed to discover a simple, reliable process and structure that I soon found could really help people stuck in this painful spiral.

  • Do you ever get nervous before a mediation and if so how do you cope with it?

My Mum always taught me there are two types of nervousness- the helpful and the unhelpful kind.The trick is to manage them, so they don’t take over and become counter-productive. I believe that before every mediation there should be a healthy dose of nerves, to focus and support you to rise to the challenge!

  • To read the full interview, please click here.

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