News & Events

Restorative Justice and SHB; practice guidance

Restorative Justice and Sexually Harmful Behaviour;

 Aim has just released a set of three guidance booklets; specific details of each booklet  can be found under the RJ section in Models and details of how to order them are to be found in the Store section of the website.

These booklets are a 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 encourage RJ practitioners to reflect upon their own practice in relation to SHB.

We are not attempting a definitive or prescriptive approach. We merely offer some insightinto 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 elementscreates something more exciting and innovative than the individual component parts.

The AIM Restorative work represents a good example of this approach. The combination oft he 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.