restorative justice

RJ and SHB Practice Guidance

Restorative Justice and Sexually Harmful Behaviour;

Aim has just released a set of three guidance booklets; specific details of how to order them are to be found in the Store section of the website 

These booklets area trilogy of guidance relating to Restorative Justice (RJ) work in the contextof Sexually Harmful Behaviour (SHB).

 The  titles are;

• Referral Order Practice and Sexually Harmful Behaviour
• Victim Contact and Sexually harmful Behaviour
• Restorative approaches to Sexually Harmful Behaviour

The intent is;

·   to inform and develop best practice within this field

·   to disseminate the experience of the AIM project working in this area of RJ andSHB over the past 8 years

·   to encourageRJ practitioners to reflect upon their own practice in relation to SHB.

We are not attempting a definitive or prescriptive approach. We merely offer some insight into what we have learned in relation to what we believe to be effective practice, our hope is that stimulates reflection and consideration by practitioners and thereby contributes to the ongoing dialogue that we enjoy within the restorative community which in turn makes it such a rewarding and stimulating environment to work.

There is much talkof ‘synergy’ nowadays; the notion that combining two complimentary elements creates something more exciting and innovative than the individual componentparts.

The AIM Restorative work represents a good example of this approach. The combination ofthe knowledge and experience gained by the AIM Project with regard to pioneering work with children and young people who display SHB together with the quality restorative work undertaken by the Greater Manchester Family Group Meetings Project has created the confidence to move forward in the challenging environment of RJ and SHB. 

Although the context for this work has largely been within the youth justice system of England and Wales, and the audience for this material we anticipate to be staff working in Youth Offending Teams, we believe the work offers much more to practitioners from a broader restorative perspective. 

Referral Orders and SHB Guidance;

This guidance is written with the intention of including the practice learning and experience we have cautiously gathered in the AIM- Family Group Meetings Project over the past four years. In addition it reflects and expands upon issues identified inthe 2005 Home Office ‘Best Practice Guidance for Restorative Practitioners and their Managers’. This includes a specific section entitled ‘Sensitive andComplex cases’ which acknowledges that many of the skills and considerations which are applicable to ‘mainstream’ Restorative justice (RJ) are applicable for work with sensitive and complex cases, but identifies the additional considerations  of appropriate skill level, suitabilityand the need for a specialist RJ/SHB assessment framework. 

This guidance is designed to address these additional considerations.;

• To help Referral  Panel members deliver the most appropriate restorative outcome,
• Consider their information needs, how that information is used to inform possible or potential processes and ultimately inform the outcome agreed in the contracting phase thus increasing their confidence to deal with sensitive and complex cases appropriately.

Victim Contactand SHB Guidance;

The purpose and aim of this guide is to offer guidance to victim contact staff and restorative justice workers in contacting the victims of child and adolescent SexuallyHarmful Behaviour (SHB). We have deliberately avoided the use of the term ‘best practice’ guidance as we have approached this subject with a degree of tentative caution which reflects a lack of absolute certainty about what exactly is ‘best’ practice. Instead we have tried to pull together our experience within the AIM Project and knowledge gained in the pursuit of our restorative practice with child and adolescent sexually harmful behaviour overthe past years in Greater Manchester.

The guide is aimed at those within the youth criminal justice system (CJS) who have an operational role for victim contact, to gather a victim’s perspective for inclusion within the formal and informal processes of the CJS, or to explore the potential for either direct or indirect engagement in a restorative process with those who have committed the harm. It is not intended to be a guide for those who have amore therapeutic role for victims or those whose role is more accurately described as being one of support.

Restorative Justice Meetings and SHB Guidance;

This booklet draws upon the experience of the AIM Project in delivering RJ in the context of childand adolescent SHB to reflect upon the following;

Advantages and Disadvantages of application

The AIM2Assessment Framework  and the                                            

Restorative JusticeAssessment                                                                         

The range of AIM RJ practice                                                                

Models employed                                                                    

Standard setting                                                                      

Other Restorative models                                                        

Practice observations drawn from our experience                        

Voices from participants in AIM Restorative Meetings                  

Issues around Denial                                                               

Planning around Victims needs                                                 

Planning/practice issues with regard to the offender                   

Particular needs/characteristics of participants in the process        

Reflections on shame, forgiveness and redemption     

The hope is to give confidence to RJ practitioners to explore the safe potential for restorative approaches in SHB, to recognise the benefits as well as potential difficulties, to examine the practice delivery issues from the perspective of assessment, skills needed and suitability of models employed.