Restorative justice project: Lots of movement!

The restorative justice project is on the move! As you may already know, we will be working with the Restorative Justice Centre in Pretoria. During the K&S day in Gent we jointly developed some working principles, based on a first e-mail from the RJC with some ideas for cooperation. There is a lot of enthusiasm, and ideas and e-mails are flowing back and forth. To keep you all updated, a short summary of where we are

How we want to work
This is where we started: what is is that attracts us in the idea of working with the RJC, and when will it be most effective? This is what we came up with:

-Systemic or working with all the stakeholders of de RJC
-Why not celebrate now (before the RJC has 10 years) and use this as a nice way to learn about the past (and strenghts) of the RJC
-Experiencing, doing, sharing, ... together
-Sustainable contribution
-Learning about professionalisation that inherates the soul (becoming professional while keeping the spirit in it)

Quite cryptic, I know, so call one of us if you want to learn more... :-)

Ideas on the move...

Mark talked to Mike, the director of the RJC, and he is very enthousiastic. At the moment, three concrete ideas for cooperation are floating about:

-Coaching of the (new) MT: Out of 5 people on the management team 3 of them are new. Idea is to support new management team members with some coaching that could possibly start quite soon...
-Linking and learning through new international connections: Mike would be keen to see if we can help build a link with the European Union Forum on Restorative Justice that is based at Lleuven University - he mentioned the name of Ivo Aertsen as being one of the movers behind the Forum and that there may also be a new Coordinator. Can we make a connection (Belgian colleagues??) and see maybe if we can tap into some 'latest' thinking on Restorative Justice??
-Developing a seminar on 'policy over-reach': One of the challenges faced in RJ in South Africa is helping the policy makers to move beyond a commitment on paper to RJ to actually make it happen in practice. This is perhaps partly a 'mind-set' issue - the commitment is there in policy documents, but then a Minister will make a provocative statement about the need for police to get tougher with criminals ('shoot the bastards') in order to get popular support... This could be an interesting issue to explore with some key policy makers - maybe in a seminar in September. The challenge to us would then be could we facilitate a process that could help lead the system beyond 'policy over-reach' into moving the system forward in a real sense...?
-Furthermore, Philippe has proposed to do a workshop with constellations involving all of the stakeholders in restorative justice, which in my mind fits very well in the process of developing a seminar on policy over-reach.

...and people in action
-Philippe contacts the European Union Forum on Restorative Justice in Leuven (maybe with some of the Belgian colleagues)
-Mark and ? may coach the MT people. Mark; is that something that you like to take up? Maaike could also imagine playing a role (and liking it) through e-coaching, a subject I'm am interested in and practicing with at the moment. Shall we pick a date to skype and develop some ideas on how we could approach this?
-Paul B is reading up on restorative justice issues in the Netherlands, and especially within the Dutch police force. He is also contacting people at the policy that are working on these issues.
-Katrien is contacting the Judicial House in Antwerp to learn more about what they do on restorative justice. She will also contact a Belgian lawyer through her husband, who is also interested in the issue.
-Maaike and Mark will contact the RJC to develop a first concept of a program based on the ideas there are now. We'll get back to you on that. To all of you: if you have any great ideas, please call us/ mail us to share, so we can take that with us in our conversations!
-Erik: last time I spoke to you about this, you said that you wanted to contact some of your clients at the courts, if I remember correctly- is that still an idea?

I think it would be interesting to focus in our conversations with several organisations on the issues and dilemma's that the RJC faces, and how Dutch and Belgium organisations are recognizing and dealing with these dilemma's. In that way, we can make a nice link. Any other ideas on that? We're happy to hear your thoughts!

Maaike, Mark, Martijn, Robert, Erik, Paul B., Marcus, Katrien, Lieve