Frauke Petzold is a mediator, trainer and confilct consultant in diverse social and economic arenas. After completing her studies in pedagogic / social science at the University of Hanover, Germany, she worked as a junior reseacher in the Criminological Reseach Institute of Lower Saxony in Hanover. For 7 years she was involved in projects such as research on one of the first victim-offender-mediation programmes in Germany for juvenile offenders and their victims and a research project for victims of criminal offences.

In 1990, Frauke and her collegue, Dr. Lutz Netzig, founded the Waage Hanover e.V., one of the first nonprofit organisations in Germany to offer victim offender mediation for adult offenders and their victims. From the beginning, both Frauke and Dr. Netzig  have worked as part-time mediators. Over the last few years, they expanded their work to include cases of domestic violence. This work includes conflict consulting, mediation and shuttle diplomacy.

Frauke and her collegue have trained volunteers to be mediators in minor cases. She was also a part of the first pool of trainers to teach social workers and other profesionals about victim offender mediation.

In 1998 Frauke and Dr. Netzig founded the Waage-Institut GbR –  Institut for Conflict consulting, mediation, training and research. Through this organization, they provide training in conflict consulting and mediation for

• schools (teachers and pupils)
• health organisations
• companies
• adult high schools
• other organisations.
  

Since 2002 Frauke has served as a Board member of the European Forum for Restorative Justice – Victims, Offenders, Community. She is involved in two AGIS programmes of the European Forum. One of these facilitates the exchange of training models in Europe and the development of a pool of trainers on mediation. The other AGIS project seeks implementation and development of restorative justice programmes and victim offender mediation projects in Central and Eastern Europe.

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For me and my work it is very important to combine practice and training. Doing the mediation in my practice gives me authenticity in my work as a trainer.

Working as a mediator means giving responsibility for the conflicts back to the people in conflict, and to support them as they find solutions which are worthwhile for both sides. I like the change that comes when those in conflict move from wanting the mediator to find a solution for them to finding happiness and pride in reaching their own results and managing their own conflicts.

As a trainer, it is always a pleasure to watch the trainees start out focusing on the steps and techniques of mediation and then come to see that techniques and methods are not the most important part of the mediation. The attitude of a mediator is much more important and the most difficult to learn and understand. This is an attitude of not taking over responsibility for providing a solution, but instead of serving as a catalyst to help those in conflict solve their problems.

Frauke Petzold

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Frauke continues to work on implementation of mediation and restorative justice in Germany and other countries, and to encourage exchange between different restorative justice programmes. Her goal is to help people learn from each other by building projects and fostering the sharing of experiences and developments in those fields.

Working in a country where mediation began in the fields of penal and civil law, Frauke sees the importance of introducing restorative and mediation processes to communities in order for it to become a part of everyday life.

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Reach Frauke Petzold at  f.petzold@waage-institut.de