Starting from a professional background in social work child care; adult mental health; family therapy; psychotherapy; area team management, and ten years as head of Social Work Education, Ruskin Anglia University Cambridge. His M.Sc is in ‘The Sociology of Mental Health’. Tony has over 35 years of experience as a mediator, practice consultant, trainer and author.
Given that 30 years ago mediation was only just evolving in the UK, there were very few service providers or trainers, other than in Family mediation. With significant help from existing specialists in those fields, he developed other contexts and subsequently trained hundreds of mediators in Family; Community/neighbour; Health Care Complaints Conciliation; Victim Offender and Workplace mediation contexts, until they had established their own services and training.
Over ten years he designed and delivered culturally appropriate, - ‘Communitarian/Collectivist’, training - as opposed to the predominant, ‘Western individualist’ models - to over 1,400 Shia Imami Ismaili Muslim mediators, in Pakistan; India; Kenya; Uganda; Tanzania; Syria; Afghanistan; Portugal; UK; USA; and Canada.
He has presented papers and workshops at several international conferences, and published over 40 articles on mediation. He is one of the founder members of the College of Mediators, formerly the UK College of Family Mediators. Now retired from practice, he continues to write, is a College advisor and is an active member of the Professional Standards Committee.
He has published three books to date:
Mediation Skills and Strategies. A Practical Guide. (2012 Jessica Kingsley). Also published in Spanish.
Mediation and Dispute Resolution. Contemporary Issues and Developments. (2021 Jessica Kingsley).
Dealing With Disputes and Conflict. A Self-help Tool-kit for Resolving Arguments in Everyday Life. (2022 Routledge), hopefully soon to be translated into Arabic, by a special Syrian friend Hazim.
Tony’s next book is work in progress and will be very different.