All Things Conflict

In this deeply moving episode of All Things Conflict - Justice Redesigned, Maria Arpa sits down with Rachel Clara Reed, an independent documentary filmmaker turned accredited death doula and conflict facilitator. Rachel Clara Reed shares her organic path into this tender space, sparked by the sudden loss of her father when she was 18 and the isolating cultural silence that followed in its aftermath.

Together, Rachel Clara Reed and Maria dissect how the most natural human transitions—birth and death—have been systematically institutionalized and medicalized over the last century. They challenge the modern tendency to surrender our innate wisdom to corporate "experts" and explore how reclaiming agency at the end of life is directly connected to broader justice movements. Rachel Clara Reed details her experience hosting over 200 people at "Death Dinners" —revealing the surprising presence of laughter, joy, and physical relief when deep-seated cultural taboos are finally broken.

Maria also shares an incredible, radical personal account of choosing to bypass traditional funeral directors to stage a completely independent, natural woodland burial for her own mother. Whether you are navigating your own grief or seeking to understand family dynamics under pressure, this conversation offers a sanctuary of calm, regulation, and profound perspective.



Key Takeaways

Reclaiming Human Agency: Over the last century, birth and death have been highly medicalized, stripping families of their innate wisdom to tend to their loved ones during critical transitions.



The Power of Death Dinners: Rachel Clara Reed has hosted hundreds of strangers over home-cooked meals to talk about mortality. These spaces often generate surprising lightness, profound relief, and healing laughter, shattering the myth that discussing death must be exhaustingly heavy.



Grief is a Process, Not a Single Emotion: Repressed grief often harbors unrecognized taboos around feelings like relief or joy. Acknowledging the multi-layered reality of loss lifts immense physical and psychological weight from the body.



Bypassing the Commercial Funeral Industry: Maria recounts her radical choice to refuse a corporate funeral director, instead buying a woodland plot, managing the transport, and filling her mother's eco-coffin with fresh herbs alongside family.



Preventing Crisis-Mode Ruptures: Families frequently fracture post-loss because old relationship dynamics and repressed grief collide under immense psychological pressure. Engaging in proactive, end-of-life dialogue helps establish frameworks before crisis hits.



Regulating the Nervous System: A facilitator's or loved one's greatest tool when sitting with someone in deep pain is not finding the perfect words, but actively calming and regulating their own nervous system to anchor the space.



Timestamps

00:00 – Introduction: Meet Rachel Clara Reed, Death Doula and Dialogue Facilitator.

02:52 – De-Medicalizing Death: Restoring innate wisdom to families.

05:30 – Connection to Justice: How claiming end-of-life dignity mirrors human rights activism.

05:50 – The Shock of Sudden Loss: Rachel's personal story of isolation at age 18.

07:14 – Breaking Taboos: Breaking bread and confronting mortality at "Death Dinners".

08:46 – Systemic Urgency: How fear and artificial rigidness distort natural human cycles.

12:40 – Unsilencing the Narrative: The severe agony of keeping our heaviest stories untold.

14:32 – Laughter as Balance: Distinguishing defense mechanisms from cosmic absurdity.

17:47 – Maria's Radical Alternative: Staging a complete DIY funeral for her mother.

22:27 – The Trap of Individualism: Shifting from a capitalistic business mindset to human service.

27:42 – Life as an Experiment: Moving past binary win/lose dynamics into absolute truth.

31:42 – Internal Conflict First: How internal self-compassion creates an unshakeable external container.

35:40 – Nervous System Regulation: The quiet science of co-regulation and holding safety.

38:06 – Lonely Together: Shifting from painful isolation to shared communal reality.

Rachel Clara Reed Links

Rachelclarareed.com

Social Links

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https://mariaarpa.com/

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⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠HOST BIO

Maria founded the Centre for Peaceful Solutions in response to the fatal shooting of a 7 year old in her neighbourhood. She developed a model of conflict resolution for violent crime using her brainchild, the Dialogue Road Map (DRM).

Over 30 years she has mediated everything from threat to life gang disputes to high stakes business deals gone wrong, Maria empowers people to resolve conflict without reliance on experts. So she trains violent prisoners to be facilitators, leaders to be effective communicators, teenagers to be peer mediators and neighbours to be tenant listeners within their respective communities.

This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

In this episode of All Things Conflict - Justice Redesigned, Maria sits down with Dr. Hussayn Salem, a modern polymath who successfully transitioned from a career in clinical science and stem cell gene therapy into contract law, tech entrepreneurship, and accredited dispute resolution.

Hussayn opens up about his remarkable underdog journey growing up on a rough council estate in Leicester, where he faced overt systemic racism—from school careers advisors attempting to steer him into working in a corner shop to professional football scouts explicitly telling him that South Asians "didn't have the right genetics" for the sport. Instead of letting these experiences break him, Hussayn used them as fuel to become a serial tech entrepreneur, academic, and lawyer.

Together, they pull back the curtain on the massive structural failures within the legal industry. Hassan introduces Project Olive Branch, his cutting-edge technological infrastructure designed to automate the triage of legal disputes and connect them directly with a database of underutilized, newly accredited mediators. They break down the financial inefficiency of the corporate "billable hour" model and tackle the highly volatile trend of AI-powered law firms, debating whether machine learning can scale true human empathy or if it merely simulates a dangerous, script-based "mock empathy" that detaches justice from the human soul.

Key Takeaways


Channeling Structural Adversity: Growing up on a rough council estate, Hussayn faced severe systemic barriers early in his life. He shares how he actively chose to use overt racism in academia and professional football as fuel to build his own path as a CEO and a lawyer rather than accepting the limits society tried to enforce on him.


The Mediator Bottle-neck: There is a profound structural failure within the alternative dispute resolution (ADR) market. Thousands of incredibly talented, newly accredited, and diverse mediators are being starved of casework because the legal system lacks an organized onboarding and triage pathway to connect them with active disputes.


The Trap of Billable Hours: Traditional litigation models create severe financial inefficiencies that frequently dwarf the actual value of a client's problem. Because many traditional solicitors choose to ignore or bypass mediation to safeguard firm revenue, everyday clients end up paying upwards of £30,000 in legal expenses to fight over a basic £5,000 invoice.


Project Olive Branch as a Triage Network: Designed by Hussayn, Project Olive Branch is not a direct mediation practice but a data-structuring tech infrastructure play. It utilizes machine learning to act as a digital "triage" system—taking massive volumes of unstructured dispute data, organizing it, contacting the opposing parties, and intelligently matching the case to a neutral, domain-specific mediator database.


The Danger of AI "Mock Empathy": While embracing technology as an administrative tool to handle data processing, Hussayn warns against relying on automated online dispute resolution (ODR) to settle complex human issues. AI tools can only simulate a surface-level, script-learned "mock empathy" that entirely misses the unspoken, emotional, and energetic connection required to truly de-escalate human conflict.

Key Timestamps


00:00 – Introduction


02:12 – From Stem Cells to Shareholders: Hussayn unusual corporate transition.


06:11 – Overcoming the Council Estate: Defying the limitations set by early careers advice.


08:05 – "Asians Lack the Genetics": The structural racism that halted a professional football career.


10:08 – Choosing to Lead: Turning down traditional corporate management schemes to become a CEO.


11:48 – Moving into Law: Transitioning to contract law and accredited mediation.


14:17 – Adversarial Indoctrination: Why society defaults to fighting instead of communicating.


16:35 – The 900 Rejections: The brutal reality of funding a legal tech startup.


21:20 – The Underutilized Mediator Market: Why qualified ADR talent is being starved of work.


24:58 – Alternative Applications: Teaching real-world mediation skills to prisoners inside Dartmoor Prison.


29:25 – Project Olive Branch: Building a digital data-structuring infrastructure for legal conflicts.


33:05 – The Billable Hours Conflict: Spending £30k to fight over a £5k invoice.


37:52 – Can AI Feel Empathy?: The danger of automated online dispute resolution (ODR) and "mock empathy."


41:10 – The History of Peacemaking: Drawing inspiration from village elders, Quakers, and community roots.


51:12 – If I Had the Keys to the Ministry Of Justice

In this episode of All Things Conflict - Justice Redesigned, Maria sits down for a deeply insightful conversation with Sir Max Hill KC, former Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) for England and Wales. With nearly 40 years of experience on both sides of the courtroom, Sir Max offers an unparalleled insider perspective on where our legal system succeeds, where it is cracking under pressure, and what it truly takes to deliver justice.

Sir Max reflects on the heavy burden of prosecuting landmark national security cases—ranging from the last Real IRA campaign to Al-Qaeda and the 7/7 London bombings. He shares his nuanced view on the "line" between criminal conduct and civil liberties, detailing why older, simpler common law tools are often superior to modern legislation. The conversation also tackles critical contemporary issues, including the crisis of care-experienced youth falling prey to criminal exploitation, the gridlock of the remand prison population, and the highly debated Court Modernisation Bill.

Key Takeaways


Simplifying Terror Legislation: Sir Max argues that we often do not need more 21st-century laws; old-fashioned common law offenses like murder or conspiracy to murder are perfectly equipped to prosecute complex modern crimes.


Guarding the Gateway for Youth: Criminalising teenagers at 14 or 15 permanently alters their life trajectories. Sir Max highlights the effectiveness of "conditional cautions" to divert young people into supportive pathways rather than clogging the court system.


The Disadvantage Gap for Care-Leavers: As Chair of the Drive Forward Foundation, Sir Max advocates for specialised support and higher benefit structures for care-experienced youth, who lack the parental and societal safety nets that insulate others from criminal exploitation.


The Crisis of Remand & Delayed Justice: With roughly 20% of the prison population currently sitting on remand, delayed justice frequently amounts to denied justice. Sir Max addresses the critical failure of a system where defendants can wait years in custody only to be acquitted.


Defending the Right to a Jury: While acknowledging the need for greater efficiency to clear the post-COVID backlog of 10,000+ Crown Court cases, Sir Max vocally opposes the government's proposal to wholesale remove jury trials for complex fraud or lower-tier offenses.


The Single-Budget Tug of War: Handed the "keys to the Ministry of Justice," Sir Max's primary structural fix would be separating the court budget from the prison estate. Currently, skyrocketing prison maintenance costs are starving the courts, leading to leaky infrastructure and stagnating legal aid wages.

Key Timestamps


00:00 – Introduction: Meet Sir Max Hill KC, Former Director of Public Prosecutions.


03:33 – The Burden of Responsibility: Prosecuting the IRA, Al-Qaeda, and the 7/7 Bombings.


06:43 – Defining "The Line": How prosecutors choose whether to charge a suspect.


10:55 – Conditional Cautions: Using out-of-court disposals to tackle recidivism.


15:11 – Levelling the Playing Field: Supporting care-experienced youth with the Drive Forward Foundation.


22:51 – The Backlog Crisis: Brain Leveson’s efficiency reports and the Court Modernisation Bill.


26:22 – Reclassification of Offenses vs. Removing the Fundamental Right to a Jury Trial.


29:20 – Trapped on Remand: The human cost of keeping unconvicted individuals behind bars.


35:08 – Tearing Down Silos: The missing link between the MOJ, Home Office, and Department for Education.


40:05 – The Long Island Amnesty Model: Using community accountability to end open-air drug markets.


44:33 – Austerity in the CPS: Rebuilding a decimated legal headcount and operating budget.


51:12 – The Surprise Question: Sir Max’s radical funding fix for the Ministry of Justice.


55:10 – Closing Thoughts: Why the English legal system is still respected around the world.

Social Links

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⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.workplacehuddle.com⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠
⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠HOST BIO

Maria founded the Centre for Peaceful Solutions in response to the fatal shooting of a 7 year old in her neighbourhood. She developed a model of conflict resolution for violent crime using her brainchild, the Dialogue Road Map (DRM).

Over 30 years she has mediated everything from threat to life gang disputes to high stakes business deals gone wrong, Maria empowers people to resolve conflict without reliance on experts. So she trains violent prisoners to be facilitators, leaders to be effective communicators, teenagers to be peer mediators and neighbours to be tenant listeners within their respective communities.

This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

Most conflicts never actually get resolved, they just go quiet until they resurface somewhere else. Philosopher Paul Baker returns for his fourth conversation with host Maria Arpa to unpack his developing theory of systemic win, built around a simple but powerful order: address what's worse before chasing what's better.

Drawing on examples from couples therapy, prison work and restorative justice practice, Paul and Maria explore why a neutral third party who cares about the whole system can transform unresolved harm into a genuine foundation for repair, and why avoiding discomfort, including the human need to grieve, only delays the real work.

Listeners working in justice, mediation or restorative practice will take away a clearer framework for distinguishing surface-level fixes from root-cause healing, along with practical thinking on how to support both the harmed and the person who caused harm.

Tune in for a rich, reflective conversation on what it really takes to complete a conflict rather than just survive it.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Address the "worse" before chasing the "better." Paul argues this order matters: skipping straight to positivity without dealing with what's actually wrong just papers over the problem.

Recognise that conflict you think is "resolved" often isn't. If it only de-escalated rather than being fully addressed, the unresolved part resurfaces and tangles itself into future disagreements.

Bring in a third party who cares about the whole system, not just one side. Mediators, facilitators or restorative justice practitioners who hold the wellbeing of everyone involved can shift a conflict into genuinely new territory.

Don't deny people the need to grieve a conflict or fallout. Treating every situation with forced positivity is a form of conflict avoidance that cuts people off from an important emotional process.

Remember that people who cause harm need healing too, separate from the people they harmed. Restorative justice practice should include support for the person who caused damage, delivered by someone not directly involved in the harm.

QUOTES

"We should pay attention, give significant attention, at least to the worse, to make sure that we aren't just... putting a plaster over the top."

"If you're not good in the fight, don't make the fight worse."

"As long as the conflict has de-escalated a bit, people think, oh, well, that conflict's dealt with. But it's not dealt with."

"To avoid or deny the human need for grieving is to cut part of our life off."

"When someone or some part of the system has lost, we mustn't punish the rest of the system around them just because they're associated with them."

Social Links

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.centreforpeacefulsolutions.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.peacefulsolutions.org.uk⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.workplacehuddle.com⁠⁠

⁠
⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠HOST BIO

Maria founded the Centre for Peaceful Solutions in response to the fatal shooting of a 7 year old in her neighbourhood. She developed a model of conflict resolution for violent crime using her brainchild, the Dialogue Road Map (DRM).

Over 30 years she has mediated everything from threat to life gang disputes to high stakes business deals gone wrong, Maria empowers people to resolve conflict without reliance on experts. So she trains violent prisoners to be facilitators, leaders to be effective communicators, teenagers to be peer mediators and neighbours to be tenant listeners within their respective communities.

This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

What if the one fact that could prove a man's innocence was buried for decades? At 6:09am on the morning of the White House Farm killings, a 999 call was made from inside the house — while Jeremy Bamber stood outside surrounded by armed police. After 41 years in prison, that detail may finally matter.

In this episode of All Things Conflict, Maria Arpa is joined by innocence campaigner Phillip Walker and former broadcast journalist and ex-BT 999 operator Michael Watkins to examine the evidence behind one of Britain's most disputed convictions. Together they unpack the phone logs, forensic reports and crime scene interference that, they argue, were never properly presented to the jury — and what the case reveals about a justice system in which the prosecution controls what gets seen.

In this episode:

Why protesting your innocence can paradoxically lengthen a prison sentence

The significance of the 6:09am 999 call and how 1980s telephone tracing worked

The hidden 3:26am call log attributed to Neville Bamber

How the crime scene — and the bloodstained Bible — was rearranged

New forensic findings on the moderator and Sheila Bamber's wounds

Why the CCRC and the lack of a UK "Brady rule" make appeals so difficult

About Phillip Walker and Michael Watkins:
Phillip Walker is a member of the Jeremy Bamber Innocence Campaign, drawn to the case as a member of the public after concluding the prosecution's account was deeply flawed. Michael Watkins is a former BBC and Sky broadcast journalist who worked as a 999 and operator-line telephone exchange operator in the 1980s, and who set out to confirm the conviction but reached the opposite conclusion.

Key topics covered:

The White House Farm case background

The 999 call evidence

Hidden phone logs and disclosure failures

Crime scene interference

Forensic moderator evidence

The CCRC and appeal process

The role of the jury and the judge

If this episode made you think, follow All Things Conflict and leave a review — it helps more people find these conversations.

Social Links

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.centreforpeacefulsolutions.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.peacefulsolutions.org.uk⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.workplacehuddle.com⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠HOST BIO

Maria founded the Centre for Peaceful Solutions in response to the fatal shooting of a 7 year old in her neighbourhood. She developed a model of conflict resolution for violent crime using her brainchild, the Dialogue Road Map (DRM).

Over 30 years she has mediated everything from threat to life gang disputes to high stakes business deals gone wrong, Maria empowers people to resolve conflict without reliance on experts. So she trains violent prisoners to be facilitators, leaders to be effective communicators, teenagers to be peer mediators and neighbours to be tenant listeners within their respective communities.

This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/