Social mediation is an emerging professional activity for creating and improving social interactions. It can be used in many different situations and locations: It is part of different contexts: schools, transport, communities, neighbourhoods, interculturality, welcoming and supporting refugees etc.. The European project CreE.A MEM has designed a mobility program for social mediators all around Europe. Afpa participates in this project as an associated partner as part of working groups to define the modalities of the mobility. Each country is represented by a national consortium (Belgium, France, Italy, Portugal and Spain). The French consortium contains the mediation organisation Optima, but Afpa is not part of it as it remains an associated partner.
The goals of this project are:
- Reaching a common definition of social mediation
- Identifying mediation skills and classifying them
- Linking skills to the mobility project
- Creating an assessment matrix for the mobility
A series of seminars was arranged to outline the organization and structure of the mobility, scheduled for the end of 2022. The first seminar, which took place in Paris at the CNAM in January 2022, made it possible to establish a working framework and a common vision of mediation. Working groups were defined for:
- State of the art for training: Belgium group
- Social mediators’ skills: Afpa and Spain
- Engineering: Italy and Spain
« Social mediation covers communication practices aiming to positively change social interactions »
During the second seminar in March 2022 in Brussels, the participants defined the skills shared amongst European mediators. Skills were organised into four categories:
- Organisational skills: enabling planning as an individual but also as part of a team
- Relational, listening and communication skills which are the foundations of mediation: what approach to adopt depending on the situation as type of communication and body language are an integral part of the job.
- Analytic skills: relying on the mediator’s experience with observation skills and appropriate response to sensitive situations
- Mobility linked skills: showing openness to get a wider perspective and new working methods
Therefore, in the next seminar (Turin, May 2022) the participants agreed consensus on training engineering of the mobility (duration of internships, target location, design of learning scenarios, assessment criteria and training master’s role). After this, every national consortium will work with another country consortium on the certification process (trainee’s booklet and certification deliverable). For example, France will be paired with Italy.
The work of these groups will be revealed at a third seminar which will take place in Seville in October 2022.
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