Alignmediation Reviews 8

I did the remote course to qualify as a mediator. The course hands out and videos were very good but the best were the personal tutor sessions. Paula was my tutor and was excellent at pointing me in the right direction, giving me advice and constructive criticism and building my confidence to become an effective professional mediator.

I did the online course of individual modules with an assessment at the end of each module. This is a very relaxed form of learning without time pressures, so I could do the assessments when I felt ready. The Tutors were very knowledgeable, patient and helpful.
I would recommend this course .

Annual training a must for points but a real pleasure returning to a team consistently providing resourceful tools for my business growth.
I benefitted opportunities with options, navigating both my finances and desired goals. AAA highly recommend ✨

My experience with Align Mediation.

I recently joined a week’s training with Align Mediation and I was one of eleven trainees. I am pleased to have the opportunity to report that, we were welcomed at the start and received a thoroughly excellent training with well managed participation. It was professional and a very enjoyable. It was followed by useful advice on how to proceed and engage with practicing as a mediator. I would highly recommend them.

The Align Mediation course gave me all I needed to set up as a Civil and Commercial Mediator. The course materials are excellent and continue to be a great reference for my practice. The course was well paced, clearly presented and with lots of role play practice, it built my confidence for the final assessment as well as for my first few solo mediations once I launched my business. I'd highly recommend the course to anyone seeking to start out as a mediator or for anyone wishing to develop active listening, mediation skills to use in their existing role.

Steve, Paula and Harry were fantastic tutors on this course and the contents were varied and interesting. They made sure it is very interactive with plenty of time to role play, practise active listening and hone our questioning skills. The whole emphasis of the course is to be flexible and move inside the mediation with where the participants decide to take the conversation. Overall a fabulous course with great tutors and really useful content, I would highly recommend it.

I recently attended the 5 day course via zoom and it exceeded my expectations. I still stay in touch with the other people on my course which is great for post qualification opportunities and have already put the training into practice! Highly recommended!

I have updated my review to address your response Harry.

My comment: Incomplete training with far too much emphasis on introductions and tick-box exercises to appease accreditors, no real substance.

Your response: It covers the full mediation process end to end including substantial time on closing sessions, resolutions and drafting agreements.

Reality: This is false. When questioned by students during the course why we are not looking at closing sessions, you responded by advising that the CMC do not mark heavily in this area and therefore we don't need to cover it.

My comment: Training only covers small value unrealistic civil matters, no commercial training whatsoever. No training on closing sessions, resolutions or agreements.

Your response: We use a mix of scenarios and around 25% of our case exercises are commercial.

Reality: There were 2 x workplace disputes, 1 family dispute (which was entirely unexpected), 1 civil dispute.

My comment: Post training support, which is falsely advertised as inclusive, is in fact only available in the form of follow up courses costing £1000s more.

Your response: Post-qualification support is included in the course fee (resources, templated agreements, avenues for shadowing opportunities etc).

Reality: There is a single email sent out with confirmation of completion, and what appears to be a bundle of word documents with a roughly put together agreement template. The 3 sentences and 1 document regarding resources was outdated by 5 years (the CMC have confirmed 4 major revisions since that version was released during COVID) and the one contact provided no longer exists.

My comment: They claim to offer lifetime free membership to their mediation panel, but this is then not honoured on completion. And the CMC have just confirmed that they are not registered as CMC regulated mediators, only CMC regulated trainers.

Your response: Panel membership is available to graduates who meet the eligibility criteria (to ensure quality, insurance and experience requirements are met), and applications are honoured on that basis.

Reality: You do not hear from them again other than to advertise more courses. There is no application process.

My comment: Upon further research it appears they conduct very few mediations themselves and those on their panel qualified 10 years ago (which is misleading as they present themselves primarily as a top mediation service provider.

Your response: We're CMC accredited trainers and are transparent about the difference between training accreditation and any separate mediator registrations.

Reality: to date they continue to advertise on their website that they are CMC accredited mediators (in addition to the regulated training).

Update: Since I published this review here and on other sites, multiple positive reviews have also appeared. 3 of whom where by the actual trainers that ran the course and 2 of whom live in the same area yet coincidently took the course at the exact same time.

My advice to any one considering taking up this course is do your due diligence and stick to the well known larger institutions or risk paying extortionate sums for a worthless certificate and no actual learning.

Response to your recent reply:
1. We’ve checked our system and don’t have any record under your name. It’s possible your training took place some years ago or under different details, which may explain why your comments don’t reflect our current programme. Our training and post-qualification support have evolved significantly over time, in line with CMC and IMI requirements.

My response: My training took place in April 2025, conducted by yourself, Steven, and Paula Saunders (whose fake google review stating she was recently a student on your course you have since redacted, but I have a screenshot of).

2. Comments about other reviews. We encourage genuine feedback from past trainees and graduates now that this Trustpilot page is active. Everyone is free to share their own experience, and we do not control or incentivise what anyone writes.

My response: The trustpilot page only came to light since my review. And likewise with google reviews, your page only gained "traction" since the negative review of another attendee. Thereafter the new positive reviews seem to appear every time I respond to your comments. I was also quite quickly ascertain via a quick google search that these comments are mostly posted by friends and family.

3.Comments about our credibility and certification.
My response: Nobody is questioning that you have delivered training. But the 100+ self published reviews on your own website by people who took the course over 10 years does not reflect the current conditions. I have reached out to some who confirmed this.