Schools are tasked with helping children to become socially competent(er), both in the on- and offline world. If conflicts occur, schools find out how they can tackle this behaviour and prevent it in the future. Schools cover various tracks here. More and more schools have understood that they can actively involve children and young people in their preventive and problem-solving approach. They integrate methodologies and programmes that give children and young people the opportunity to take responsibility when a conflict occurs. Some of these methods and programmes are looked at more closely in this article. The article concludes with a future-oriented dream that responds to some current educational needs.

In this article the authors describe briefly the legal aspects of liquidation of an estate and the alternative way of mediation. Besides that they investigate what should better be done before the estate will be liquidated. It turns out that also in that case the facilitation of mediation is a wise choice.

The hospital sector is not only confronted with the challenges of technical and digital medicine (AI), but also with the expectations of increasingly more talkative patients and their relatives. Luc Van Bauwel introduces you to and testifies about the way in which the ombudsman service of an important hospital group in Antwerp evolved from mere complaint handling as an ombudsservice on the basis of principles of mediation to anchoring the ideas in the liars of management, doctors and other employees; he gives an overview of how the professional ombudsman organized his self and how the surrounding other stakeholders perceived this relatively new ‘ombudsman’ service, which was established by law; how patients have experienced this form of conflict management in the past 15 years, which has been monitored inside the care institution twice in the last 15 years; in the end, he testifies how the acquired/gained trust has grown, as a result of which he now participates on board level in an active role from the very beginning of developing and implementing changes, in the ever-present processes of change, in particular aimed at the doctors associated with the organization.

Governance of family wealth is multifaceted in nature. In order to deepen our understanding of this topical issue, the current article offers a framework to grasp the complexity of family wealth governance. In doing so, the authors make a distinction between family wealth, socioemotional wealth, and family dynamics. The authors bridge the three distinct – yet interrelated – aspects both from a legal and psychological perspective. The framework can expand insight towards conflicts existing within families, across generations. Each component then provides challenges as well as opportunities to manage family conflict in an integrative and sustainable manner, a process which is facilitated by empathy.

Deepening democracy could be a way to meet contemporary and future challenges of society. In such a way there is place for engagement and wisdom of civilians, accomplished by mediated discussion.

Educated as a psychiatrist, Dr. Compernolle first became one of the world’s leading experts in work-related stress. From there, he developed into a coach of executive teams, frequently engaged by large multinational companies. Mr. Compernolle discusses the differences between coaching and mediation, and shares some of his techniques for changing communication dynamics within teams. His special interest concerns family businesses, where emotions easily surface, and where problems need to be solved swiftly, to avert irreparable damage to family relations. Mr. Compernolle concludes the interview discussing some observations from his latest book: BrainChains.

Employee resistance to change is a key factor to turnaround failure. Interim managers who support companies in financial distress, mediate between employees, management, shareholders, bank, and other stakeholders in order to solve organisational conflicts. This article explores the internal social dynamic aspects of a turnaround. It develops a theoretical framework on the role of trust, emotion and communication, and its affect on reducing internal resistance, and describes the outcomes of an exploratory research study. Findings confirm that employee motivation to make a reorganisation a success significantly impacts upon turnaround success. Resistance can be reduced by an open communication climate, offering a new perspective, attention to emotions, managing by walking around, and ‘practicing what you preach’. More research is necessary to generalize the findings and to better understand success and failure factors.

The author discusses the potential of developmental mediation. In developmental mediation the focus of the mediator is on retaining, adding and creating.

The legally trained divorce mediator, ‘the officer of the court’, can use the law as a frame of reference for his conduct, but the psychologically trained divorce mediator, ‘the healer of the family’ has no such device. His primary tools are techniques to improve the communication skills of parties, their decision-making process and respecting systemic regularities, in particular where it concerns the interests of the children, i.e. visitation rights.Divorce mediators without legal training are hampered by the absence of a clear frame of reference. They are susceptible to subjective interpretations of events, counter-transference phenomena and partiality. The divorce mediator is himself his most important instrument, but also the most vulnerable.

In their contribution ‘Employment and ICMS’, Rob Jagtenberg and Annie de Roo discuss the yields that an integrated conflict management system may bring to individual workers, to the company or organisation, and to society as a whole. Few organisations have adopted ICMS as yet. Therefore, the authors analyse the resistance against introduction of ICMS in some detail, especially resistance on the part of management, which likely will be decisive.Recent developments in the world economy and in politics however, may change the leverage in favour of introducing ICMS still, in the years to come.