October update – Blogs reviewing Stronger, research on supporting victims in restorative justice, and seeking interviewees published; jobs, events, articles and videos

Stronger completes run at Dublin Theatre Festival, stakeholder group members publish reviews

We hope that many of you saw Stronger, the play from Geoff Power and Guna Nua, at Smock Alley Theatre. Tim, Ursula and Ian participated in a webinar with the playwright, Geoff Power, Judge Patricia McNamara (District Court), and Noeline Blackwell (Dublin Rape Crisis Centre). You can watch the webinar here. We are also very grateful to three of our stakeholder group members for reviewing Stronger for our website. Human rights lawyer Priyangee Guha’s fantastic review can be found here. Another excellent review by Dr. Fionnuala Brennan (WIT) and Raphael O’Keefe (IPS) can be found here. We also published a Q&A with the playwright a couple of months ago, which can be found here.

New blog – helping victims achieve restorative justice goals with different degrees of victim participation

We are very grateful to Dr. Diana Batchelor (University of Oxford) for her blog summarising her recent research on this topic. The research found that facilitators should explore victims’ underlying needs because it may be possible to meet these even if the perpetrator does not take full responsibility – and the concept of ‘taking responsibility’, too, should be interrogated. You can read the blog here and find Diana’s full report here. As ever, we want to hear from prospective blog authors, so please get in touch if this is you!

Journalist and writer seeks to interview those with prison and/or restorative justice experience

Journalist and writer David Monaghan has written a blog about his work for our website. He is seeking persons with experience of incarceration and restorative justice that are willing to speak to him to inform his non-fiction writing. He explains the background to the project on our website here.

You can contact David at DavidAnthonyMonaghan@gmail.com.

Seeking – placement providers (MU), project coordinator (BCR), administrative assistant (RJS), volunteers (PACE)

• Last year, in collaboration with an NGO on our stakeholder group, we organised a research placement for the criminology master’s student who received the top mark in my restorative justice module. If you are interested in hosting an excellent restorative justice postgraduate student for a research placement next summer – it can be as long or as short as you need, and involve various research activities to suit your needs, with my support – please get in touch!
• Dublin South City Partnership is seeking a project coordinator for Building Community Resilience – find more information here (deadline 27th October).
• Restorative Justice Services is seeking an administrative assistant – find more information here (deadline October 25th). RJS has also published its detailed annual report, demonstrating the impact of COVID-19 and providing updated statistics and case studies about its work.
• PACE is seeking volunteers for its Circles of Support and Accountability. Contact them for details of a forthcoming volunteer information session (10th November).

Videos, articles and events of possible interest

• The Irish Times recently published an article on restorative practices in schools – find the article here.
• The Mint House in Oxford recently hosted a webinar on the practice implications of restorative approaches to harmful sexual behaviour – find the recording here.
• You may be interested in a new resource from Joe Power and CATTS Ireland. This includes an RP forum and support group (here), an FAQ on RP implementation (here) and an online course (here). You may also be interested in Joe’s latest blog on the website of the Limerick Restorative Practices Project (LRPP) (here).
• Also in Limerick, LRPP and Le Chéile have organised a fantastic series of events for RJ week in November. Find out more about the events here (Ian will chair the first one on public perceptions of RJ, which should be really interesting!) and follow Restorative Limerick on Twitter to see the registration links when they are published.
• On October 28th, there will be a webinar on participation and co-production in youth justice – you can register here.
• The New Zealand Health Quality & Safety Commission has produced a fantastic video on the role of restorative practices in responding to harms in healthcare settings – you can find it here.
• You may also be interested in this 2017 article from the Norther Ireland Legal Quarterly on the politics of ‘victim narratives’ in Ireland.