Newsflash / December 2024 / II

December 2024 / II - Special edition: Highlights of 2024

Looking Back at 2024

Thank you for joining us in 2024! We are very grateful for this year's enriching encounters, inspiring professional exchanges, active engagement and contribution of our members, collaborations and alliances with our partners. It was a year full of experiences in and around the EFRJ's community, and we are happy to share a few highlights in this Newsflash. Throw a glimpse with us on what happened in 2024. The following list of highlights is far from being exhaustive!

We are looking forward to continuing our work together with you next year promoting the development of high-quality restorative justice in Europe and striving for making it available for anyone, at any time, in any case.

We wish everyone peaceful and joyful end of the year festivities, and a happy new year!

12th International Conference in Tallinn

Our largest event in the year, the 12th international EFRJ Conference “Just Times: Restorative Justice Responses in Dark Times” (Tallinn, 29-31 May 2024) explored inspiring responses to large-scale conflicts, violence and systemic violence, transitional justice and peace-building initiatives. The event brought together a multidisciplinary and intergenerational audience of 368 participants from 43 countries across the globe. The programme included 4 plenaries, 42 parallel workshops (featuring various other innovative subjects) and 7 field trips. The conference served as a platform for exchange between academics, practitioners, policymakers, activists, artists, and people with lived experience. We are grateful to our hosts in Estonia (Ministry of Justice, Social Insurance Board, NGO RuaCrew and Tallinn University Conference Centre), supporters, and the vibrant EFRJ community for making this week in Tallinn so special!

This Year's European Restorative Justice Award Laureate: The Encounter of the Encounters

This year in Tallinn the European Restorative Justice Award was presented to “The Encounter of the Encounters” for promoting cross-borders restorative dialogue between restorative justice participants who experienced political violence and terrorism. This prize recognises and celebrates outstanding contributions to the development of restorative justice within Europe and is awarded every second year, typically at the EFRJ international conferences. Fun fact: the award object was designed by restorative justice facilitator and visual artist Clair Aldington back in 2022, who is also a member of The Encounter of the Encounters.

Read the laudation speech

A New Strategy for the EFRJ

Throughout the year our Board and Secretariat held special meetings to develop the EFRJ Strategy for 2026-2030. The strategy is focusing on four priority areas to achieve lasting impact:

living our shared values and strengthening our organisation;
developing evidence-based and high quality restorative justice practices;
advancing national and international policy in the field of restorative justice; and
enhancing awareness about restorative justice.

A special moment in the process was our residential board meeting joined by the core staff in Tuscany between 17th and 20th of October. Being close to nature and sharing responsibilities regarding the meeting, but also such as meals helped not only a focused work, but served also as a team building experience.

Changes in the EFRJ Community

We are excited to share that our membership has gained 93 new members in 2024, out of which 15 new organisational members (being the first organisational members from for example Bosnia and Herzegovina and Greece), and 78 individual members. While the core of our membership, 117 members, our most active members are with us for more than 5 years.
At the Annual General Meeting of the EFRJ In Tallinn (28th of May) the membership elected new Board members. We said goodbye to former board member Katarina Soulou (France/Greece), and welcomed to the board Annegrete Johanson (Estonia) and Lucy Jaffé (UK). Maia Chochua (Georgia) and Petra Masopust Šachová (Czechia) were re-elected for a second term in the Board. We thanked the passionate work of Patrizia Patrizi as EFRJ Chair. The new Board appointed the members of the Executive Committee: Brunilda Pali as Chair, Maia Chochua as Vice-chair, Lucy Jaffé as Treasurer and Claudia Christen-Schneider as Secretary.

Advocating for the Advancement of Restorative Justice

We advocated for the advancement of restorative justice at multiple levels. Within the European Union, we prioritised our advocacy efforts around the revision of the Victim’s Rights Directive, a unique opportunity to align restorative justice provisions with significant developments in restorative justice and victims' rights over the past decade. Through targeted engagement with EU policymakers, mainly from the European Commission and Parliament, we sought to overcome existing barriers to restorative justice accessibility.
We achieved significant progress in deepening its collaboration with the Council of Europe, particularly with its European Committee on Crime Problems and the Council for Penological Co-operation. We are glad to see that the Council of Europe is committed to advancing the recommendations of the Venice Declaration on Restorative Justice (2021) to support the implementation of its Recommendation (2018)8 on restorative justice.
In addition to its ongoing engagement with European policy institutions, we continued to strengthen our collaboration with national and regional policymakers, while facilitating the exchange of knowledge and experiences among them. A key highlight of the year was the annual meeting of the European Restorative Justice Policy Network, which brings together representatives from European Ministries of Justice. This meeting, held in Leuven in November, was attended by delegates from 17 countries and jurisdictions. The two main topics of discussion were the importance of multi-agency cooperation between services and authorities, and the future policy priorities and strategies for restorative justice.

Our policy aims & work

Training

This year we organised the second edition of the Winter Academy in February. The event gathered participants from Europe & other continents to learn about the voice of children in restorative processes; trauma-informed work; and restorative training facilitation. This focused learning opportunity is starting to become a tradition. It was characterised by cross-disciplinary exchange and hands-on learning and a lively community experience. Registration for the 3rd Winter Academy is still open, if you want to sign up for the last spots, register soon!

Another important training took place in May, right before our conference in Tallinn, we looked at unconscious bias and systemic power in our own work as restorative justice professionals. This training encouraged practitioners to reflect on privilege, power dynamics, and their impact on restorative justice practices.

In July we the 6th edition of the Criminal Justice Platform Europe Summer Course in Barcelona (organised in collaboration with our partners) focused on resilience.

We closed the year with the French language edition of the EFRj’s online Introduction to Restorative Justice course.

Our training programme

Virtual Events

For those who cannot join our live events, the EFRJ offers different online opportunities to meet and engage in thematic discussions relevant for the advancement of restorative justice. In 2024, we organised several webinars in cooperation with our working groups (see the ones on restorative cities, domestic violence and sexual violence) and EFRJ members and partners active in relevant innovative areas (see the one on the role of women in restorative justice academia, the one on the reforming potential of restorative justice and the one on traditional storytelling). Most video-recordings and additional materials are available online (or have been shared only with registered participants).

This is not the case for those online gatherings reserved for specific invited guests, such as the “Time to Talk” (organised to exchange with members on specific organisational challenges and questions) or the closed meeting on human rights and restorative justice (organised to brainstorm on next year’s campaign on framing restorative justice as a human right).

Keep an eye on our website: new webinars on interesting subjects will take place in January 2025 already!

Our webinars

Crossing Protect

We are engaged as partners in the "CROSSING PROTECT" project, which had its official start in March 2024. This new 3-years project dedicated to building a cross-sectoral training approach for the operators of restorative justice and victim support systems dealing with violence against women. Unique in this project is the participation of victims associations working on gender based violence and human trafficking that will contribute to designing services and training programmes on restorative justice and victim support tailored to the specific needs of women victims of violence. In November, the EFRJ and Victim Support Europe hosted the first event of the project: 32 participants travelled to Leuven for an interactive workshop focusing on building trust and cooperation between victim support and restorative justice services. They also met and engaged in a discussion with the members of the European Restorative Justice Policy Network during the networking café focusing on cooperation between practice and policy work.

More about Crossing Protect

i-RESTORE 2.0

This year marks the conclusion of the i-RESTORE 2.0 project, promoting accessible quality restorative justice processes for children in contact with the law in Europe. We proudly contributed to drafting an Awareness Circles Storybook, a Policy paper on budgeting for child-friendly restorative justice, and a Practice Guide on Child-friendly Restorative Justice, offering practical tools for practitioners. We also helped materialise games on restorative justice developed by the youth of the four Child Advisory Boards of the project, which were presented at a the Leuven Restorative City Café. You can download the games from our website in a number of languages. In September, the EFRJ hosted the project’s Closing Event in Brussels, bringing relevant stakeholders together to reflect on achievements and discuss the future of restorative justice for children. Thank you for everyone who supported our work this year! Together, we have taken important steps towards a justice system where every child feels heard and valued.

More about i-RESTORE 2.0

Get Inspired by the Restorative Justice Week

The Restorative Justice Week is each year a unique moment to celebrate and raise awareness of restorative justice. Following exchanges with international restorative justice organisations, the 2024 edition of Restorative Justice Week (17th-23rd November) explored the theme: "The Promise of Restorative Justice in a Polarising World”. The EFRJ’s website aimed to serve as a hub for collecting and sharing information about the more than 65 events taken place in 20 different countries in 6 continents! We have published a Magazine featuring events, articles about the background of the Restorative Justice Week, polarisation in society, potential ways of preventing it, and restoring relations that were divided. In addition we collaborated with IIRP in a podcast series about restorative justice in local communities (in Europe), hosted a webinar on restorative justice and domestic violence, and engaged in a public space awareness raising action together with Leuven Restorative City during the Restorative Carillon Concert.

#RJWeek 2024

Check Our New Publications

Next to our Newsflashes, Blog articles and Newsletter, we launched new stand-alone publications in 2024, as fruits of the previous years of work with our members and/or with project partners. The EFRJ Working Group on Restorative Cities launched “A journey around restorative cities in the world: a travel guide”, illustrating why and how restorative cities have emerged around the globe and in Europe, how they function, what results they deliver and under which conditions they prove to be effective. The EFRJ Working Group on Gender-Based Violence worked on an unique project, "From Survivors to Survivors: Conversations on restorative justice in cases of sexual violence", a collection of eight testimonies of people that experienced sexual violence and were offered, and sometimes even participated in, a restorative justice programme. Soon, new publications on restorative schools, environmental justice, institutional abuse, systemic violence and the principle of restoration will be launched soon by our committees and working groups.

One Thing That You Can Do to Become/Stay Active in 2025: Join an EFRJ Committee or Working Groups!

At the core of the EFRJ's activities are the work of the working groups and committees. Their contributions were essential in the organisation's achievements in 2024.

Now you can become a part of the new and renewed teams for the next two years! Apply to join one of the groups for 2025–2026 and contribute to important initiatives advancing restorative justice in areas like policy, training, environmental justice, and education. By joining, you’ll have the opportunity to collaborate with diverse experts from around the worlds, shape the future of restorative justice practices, and support the EFRJ’s strategic goals. Meetings are typically held monthly, with an additional 2-3 hours of work expected each month. The call is open to active EFRJ members, with non-members welcome to join before applying. The deadline for applications is 8th January 2025. Don’t miss the chance to be part of these groups: apply in time!

Apply for membership in a committee or working group!

In our newsflashes we share the most interesting and relevant updated about our work and collect information from our members and other individuals and/or organisations working in related fields. Information includes news, local activities, international events, publications, inspiring talks or projects, and much more, taking place in Europe and beyond. Please contact us if you have any comments or any news you would like us to share in our future editions. You can enjoy the previous editions of the EFRJ Newsflashes here. Feel free to forward them to friends or colleagues and invite them to sign up on the EFRJ website!

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