The History of EMS
Ealing Mediation Service was established as a charity in 1997 to serve the residents of Ealing borough and became a Charitable Incorporated Organisation in 2016.
We are a founder member of the London Community Mediation Council, contributing to collaborative work across London’s community mediation services. We have a long-established working partnership with Ealing Council and Ealing Police and have worked with other neighbouring local authorities and a variety of registered social landlords. As well as providing community mediation, we also offer a Talking Change Conversation, a conflict coaching service.
In 2017 when additional funding from the London Mayor ceased, we needed to develop a new volunteer-led business model which we launched in April 2020. We closed our Greenford office, became a paperless organisation, and learnt how to streamline our processes whilst maintaining the high standards of our service. We developed online video conferencing, shared ‘cloud-based’ record systems, and used virtual meetings to support our mediators in delivering high quality mediation meetings. The challenge this presented us was intensified when we had to confront the restrictions brought about by the pandemic. For the lockdown period all mediations had to adapt to the world of online meetings as did our training, management, and governance arrangements. Thankfully we had prepared ourselves for it.
Once we were able to meet again in person our face-to-face mediations resumed. However, having embraced all the advantages of modern technology many preferred to continue having online meetings via Teams. What we have now is a very versatile and flexible system which can be adapted to the preferences of our clients and mediators.