Restorative Justice Action Plan 2019 - 23

Outcome 1: Restorative Justice is available across Scotland

Organisation

• CJS have submitted the RJ Delivery Model Options Appraisal paper to the Scottish Government for their consideration in early January 2024. An overview of the options appraisal process and the options presented in the paper was shared at the RJ Stakeholder meeting held on 5 March 2024.
• The overview of the work done for the RJ Policy Framework was also presented at the RJ Stakeholder meeting in March and the Scottish Government is currently looking at the legislative context.
• In response to work currently ongoing to improve the experience of justice for those who experience harm, CJS are working with justice organisations and community justice partnerships to improve community engagement using restorative approaches. A paper Restorative Approaches for Communities in Conflict was published considering the ways in which restorative conversations and circles might be used within new and existing community participation and engagement processes, to the benefit of communities, justice organisations and the system.
• We have been working in partnership with Space2Face, monitoring and evaluating two RJ Cases to support learning around the operational side of RJ service provision. The RJ process in both cases has now come to completion and we are moving from the monitoring phase into the evaluation phase. The monitoring of these cases has provided invaluable insights into every element of the RJ process and we are exploring how this learning can be shared more broadly whilst protecting the confidentiality of the cases and the people involved in them. CJS is also in the early stages of the RJ process for a third test case led by SACRO, with various contracts and agreements being finalised.

Organisation

Progress

• CYCJ continues to engage with local authorities throughout Scotland. After liaising for a number of months, we attended a Restorative Justice planning meeting with a local authority’s children and justice teams to support their development. This is ongoing work to offer  Restorative Justice at the point of Diversion from Prosecution, and has the potential to create cases for the CYCJ team to evaluate moving forward.
• In collaboration with Community Justice Scotland, CYCJ has been working on developing evaluation tools to support the learning from Restorative Justice cases being worked on. With the agreement in next year’s workplan for cases to be tested, it is important that we ensure that the information and data we are collecting is consistent and meaningful across all cases and that we continue to make links with delivery organisations.
• Following changes in personnel, CYCJ has successfully recruited a full-time Practice Development Advisor who will commence work on 13 May 2024.

Outcome 2: Restorative Justice is delivered by highly trained and skilled facilitators

Organisation

Progress

• Following the successful refurbishment of the CJS corporate website to improve its access and content, the next phase of development, which involves the incorporation of the Restorative Justice Learning module, has resumed in this quarter. The module is scheduled to be launched by mid-May and access to it will be facilitated through the CJS Restorative Justice Learning Hub.

Organisation

Progress

• Professor Tim Chapman and Dr Annemieke Wolthuis of the European Forum for Restorative Justice delivered ‘Restorative Justice from a Children’s Rights Perspective’ training in February 2024. This training explored the intersection between restorative justice and trauma-informed practice and looked at how these approaches can be combined to uphold the rights of children in conflict with the law. Seventeen practitioners attended, including from the third sector and statutory services. All participants agreed to engage with CYCJ for a follow up session in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the training, as well as to explore how it has been utilised and any barriers to delivery. Work for this engagement session is underway and it will take place later this year.
• Furthermore, the opportunity for training attracted interest from a wider range of stakeholders including Police Scotland and the Scottish Prison Service. This led to discussions with staff at Polmont Young Offenders Institution about training specifically aimed at prison officers, and discussions are underway to deliver this.

Outcome 3: There is a public awareness and understanding of Restorative Justice across Scotland

Organisation

      Progress

• In this quarter, the CJS learning hub’s section providing Restorative Justice content has been viewed 414 times by 150 individual users, and generated 1,322 engagements and 46 downloads.
• CJS team has attended a number of meetings with stakeholders and also provided inputs on RJ and restorative practices to South Lanarkshire local authority, the Victim Centred Approach Workstream and Strathclyde University criminal law students. In addition, CJS hosted professors from the University of London, focusing discussions on community justice, encompassing RJ and recent advancements in the field. Further meetings and the learning across both sides will benefit the Scottish RJ policy and development. The team also welcomed two academics from the Czech Republic, who were interested in understanding the application of restorative approaches within the Scottish prison system.   

• CJS and CYCJ are partnering to produce an updated RJ animation video that accurately represents the current state of RJ service development throughout Scotland, and enhances the accessibility of the tool. A higher quality voice-over for the animation was successfully recorded on the 18^th of January at the University of Strathclyde. On completion, the animation  will be distributed to all stakeholders to use.
• CJS would like to encourage the stakeholders to proactively utilize the feedback mechanism dedicated to enable a more effective communication with our RJ national team. The form is also available at the bottom of this report.
• In efforts to increase public awareness and understanding of Restorative Justice and reach new audiences, CJS team has secured a place to participate in the Spit It Out Festival and deliver a talk and Q&A on RJ in Scotland. The event is scheduled to take place in Edinburgh on the 7^th of June and will introduce RJ as an optional, additional justice intervention to addressing harm caused. Full programme can be accessed following this link: Festival Programme. The promotion of the festival by the Spit It Out collective on social media and through the festival’s media partners will aid further awareness raising.

Organisation

Progress

• CYCJ continues to engage with the Scottish Network for Restorative Justice Researchers (SNRJR) and the Restorative Justice Practitioner’s Forum. This quarter we attended the SNRJR and provided information for the joint newsletter.
• We have engaged with third sector organisations that we have not previously worked with and updated them on our work and made links for the future. This will allow the awareness and understanding of the restorative justice to reach new audiences.
• In preparation for the CYCJ practice guidance update in Summer 2024 we have updated the Restorative Justice chapter, ensuring that this includes up to date and relevant information.
• CYCJ will be delivering a workshop at the European Forum for Restorative Justice’s annual conference, where we will discuss some of the engagement work we have carried out with children and young people, and the importance of this work in delivering a children’s rights focused agenda.
• Following the engagement work that was carried out with children under 12 in a local primary school, a poster has been developed to display some of their key messages. This will be published on the CYCJ website next quarter.

Restorative Justice Animation

Useful documents

Stakeholder Feedback Form

Contacts