Highlights from Calm’s Head of Restorative Justice, Julie Clark
A retrospective look through the RJ calendar took longer than I expected! It was a fantastic reminder of all that we have achieved over the last 12 months and what an incredible year it has been! Let’s look back at some of the highlights.
After an initial 3 months of mobilising the newly won contract, we kick started the New Year by planning the first strand of our partnership with Protection Approaches (PA), leading to the joint delivery of five interactive workshops. The aim of the sessions was twofold: to raise awareness of RJ after Hate Crime; and to become better equipped with the tools and insights needed to support those affected by hate crime. We wanted to ensure those with lived experience were at the forefront of shaping the services they want to receive. PA and their network did not disappoint! Each workshop saw attendees engaged in constructive conversation and we learned a huge amount from their participation. Their contributions will inform our services going forward and we look forward to the second strand of the partnership where PA will be upskilling all our staff and volunteers via their bespoke training. Our collaboration also led to an invitation to the quarterly Hate Crime Stakeholder Reference Group meetings where we continue the RJ conversation and contribute to improving the response to identity based violence in London.
January also saw the first meetings of our Service Improvement Group (SIG) chaired by another of our partners, Restorative Solutions, and the MOPAC commissioned RJ Steering Group respectively. The SIG explored potential new referral pathways, looking at what works in other areas of the UK and feeding this back into the RJ Steering Group. The aim of the Steering Group is to bring all the relevant statutory agencies and stakeholders to the table to address the challenges of information sharing protocols and unblock the referral pathways. This complex piece of work is ongoing and will shape future tenders for the commissioned RJ service.
In March we joined the panel of PUNCH at the Young Vic alongside esteemed politician, barrister and human rights activist, Baroness Shami Chakrabarti and MOPAC’s Violence Reduction Unit – an exciting reminder of the power of theatre that we would re-visit later in the year on an epic scale!
The RJ team and a number of Calm’s RJ practitioners visited the stunning Royal Naval College in May for the Greenwich RJ Conference. Tim Chapman and Audrey Asomoah were excellent keynote speakers on the topic of Delicate Dialogues: Restorative Justice in Complex Contexts. Headed up by Rachel Quine, who reached out with a personal invitation to Calm, the Royal Borough of Greenwich has long been a centre of excellence for RJ and we look forward to next year’s conference.
We couldn’t start the summer without celebrating Volunteer’s Week in June. Southwark Town Hall hosted us for a day of information and best practice sharing, consultation and most importantly, extending our thanks to all our RJ practitioners who give so much of their time, knowledge and experience to Calm. Special thanks to all those who joined us and to Matilda for arranging the great location and a delicious lunch.
Still in the midst of summer, the team benefited from the Restorative Justice Council’s (RJC) Restorative Practice CPD Symposium in July. This consisted of 12 hours over 5 days of continued professional development workshops and is crucial for Calm’s RJ Coordinators to share practice, learn, reflect and connect as practitioners. This is replicated on a smaller scale by our Coordinators, delivered to Calm’s volunteer practitioners via our quarterly group supervision forums. This year’s forums included an exploration and comparison of the 2020 and 2025 RJC Best Practice Guidance, ensuring all our practitioners remain up to date with the current framework for restorative practice, and guest speaker Aisa Sheering from the RJC. Staying with the RJC for the moment, Calm renewed our annual RJ provider registration, Dawn Foster and Zoe King achieved and renewed their practitioner registrations respectively, whilst Janet Clark renewed at Advanced level and put in her first application to become a registered supervisor – of which there are just five across England and Wales currently! In addition, Calm have supported all our practitioners with their renewal registrations at Foundation, Intermediate and Advanced levels, facilitated their annual supervisions, and our Coordinators continue to undertake case supervision throughout the year. All in all, we continue to operate ahead of the curve in terms of quality assurance.
In September we joined Catch22 in their impressive studio to record an episode of their Experts By Experience podcast called Conflict to Calm. The episode went live during International RJ Week on Apple, Spotify and YouTube and was played over Prison Radio. It was a great way to connect with our fellow LVWS partners Catch22 and raise awareness of RJ. I have it on good authority we are to be invited back! More on the LVWS – a representative from the RJ Team will be joining the LVWS Major Incident Team, responding to significant incidents that may occur affecting large groups and communities and we will be commencing a joined up approach to offering RJ to individuals at the tail end of the criminal justice system via Victim Support’s Pre Trial Outreach Service.
October was a busy month with Calm CONNECT, our flagship event, hosted at Regent’s Park University. This year we focused on restorative practice, showcasing how all our services work restoratively, promoting empathy and understanding and supporting people to have a voice, a choice and a chance for change. The RJ team had the pleasure of interviewing Dr James Tapp who shared his experience of RJ within a forensic mental health setting – a most riveting conversation that extended into the Q & A.
Re-hub also launched their internal review, inviting stakeholders and service providers to two consultation events. The message from the RJ services was clear and unified – timeframes need to be reduced, panel outcome information for victims should be formalised with a clear and concise explanation and consent to share, information sharing must be a two-way dialogue with Data Sharing Agreements in place and there should be no blanket bans on offence types. We eagerly await the report.
The landmark event of the Autumn and possibly the year, has to be joining forces with The Common Ground Justice Project, Why me? and MP Paul Kohler for The Right To Be Heard campaign, to write and table an amendment to The Victims Code, calling for the offer of RJ to be strengthened, to implement improved oversight, monitoring and recording of the RJ offer and for recommendations to improve uptake of RJ. The amendment has been heard in The House of Commons, where Calm Mediation got a mention, and is due to be heard in the House of Lords in due course. We are also signed up in support of the European Forum for Restorative Justice’s campaign to enshrine RJ into law as a human right.
The international RJ event of the year has to be PUNCH. With the tagline #MoreThanAPlay, PUNCH opened in the West End and Broadway simultaneously, giving us the opportunity to expand on the work undertaken at the Young Vic earlier in the year. With Beth Colson leading on Comms again, partnering us with The Forgiveness Project, this was a phenomenal success. We joined the panel after the performance on the 18th November (during RJ Week of course), alongside actor and Remedi Ambassador, Michael Palin, Nick Dawson from Why Me? and theatrical producer Kate Packenham for a conversation entitled Facing The People We Harm. With MOPAC joining us in the audience on that night and the entire West End run reaching 54,000 people, this is the closest we have come to a National Awareness Campaign. PUNCH is now moving back to Nottingham with more venues on the schedule. The most amazing news is that PUNCH will be delivering workshops in schools across the UK, educating our children and young people about RJ, empathy, understanding and the far-reaching consequences of violence.
This year our social media engagement – for RJ this is primarily LinkedIn – has sky rocketed. We created an impact report to share with PUNCH and were pleasantly surprised to see the growing levels of engagement, connections, followers and contacts we had made. We urge all our partners, practitioners and stakeholders to support our page by liking, commenting and sharing our posts.
For the previous 6 years we have delivered RJ awareness sessions to new recruits in the Met Police as part of Familiarisation Week. Sadly, these have now come to an end but Familiarisation Week will be replaced with another Met training programme and we eagerly await the invitation. For the fifth year running we delivered the annual RJ lecture to forensic psychology students at Kingston University. In these events combined we have reached almost 1500 of our next generation police officers and criminal justice professionals who are entering the workforce with a good understanding of how RJ can meet the needs of victims and reduce re-offending.
Our relationship with the Met Police continues to thrive and has seen an increase in Met referrals. We continue to meet with them fortnightly to discuss and progress referrals and were asked to contribute significantly to the Met internal RJ training package and to the improved victim’s leaflet. MOPAC continue to support us with the RJ Steering Group, fortnightly catch ups and quarterly monitoring meetings, with the team providing monthly and quarterly reports as well as the six-monthly Ministry of Justice report. Anya supports the team with all data matters ensuring our case management system reflects the data we are asked to provide and ensuring the system is flexible and adaptable for changing data needs. We have streamlined our processes, with Yasamin providing a safety net, ensuring we meet our response targets.
I would like to thank all the RJ team – Janet, Zoe who we happily welcomed back from maternity leave, Yasamin, Anya, Beth, Matilda and of course Dawn, who sadly for us but fortunate for them, moved over to Neighbour Mediation in August. Thank you also to Ed, Jade and the Trustees whose expertise helped us win the contact again, and John who took over as CEO in July.
Lastly, I would like to say a huge thank you to all our practitioners. We say it all the time, but we really could not deliver this service without you. You are at the heart of everything we do, and you really are an amazing group of people. Thank you for sticking with us and we look forward to doing it all again in 2026!
Have a joyful holiday, however you choose to spend it and a peaceful start to the New Year.
