Discussion with Nancy Van Eynde

Nancy Van Eynde is a senior victim-offender mediator at the Flemish restorative justice organisation, Moderator, where she has been working for 19 years. As many of her colleagues now, she experienced the challenges of how to carry on with mediation processes in times when we people are not allowed to meet in person. Moderator has shifted their team work online, and they also offer the possibility to some of their clients to continue the process online, even though this has limitations, and it is not possible in all of the cases. Nancy also wrote about the personal impact of the ongoing crisis. The discussion is part of our #SolidarityOverDistance interviews. 

" Some things we can continue by mail and phone when we are in the final phase of the mediation."

"I hear the need of offenders in jails to do something helpful."

Some of your clients are serving a sentence in a prison. How did it affect their situation?

As far as I know, they do not receive visit from family members, they have less access to mental help, and so on. So it is very hard for them. We write a letter to our clients in prisons to explain why they don’t see us these days. One prison started to make face masks, that seems to me a wonderful activity, so they feel useful for society. But this is exceptional, I think. I heard that someone is trying to organise the possibility for them to make phone calls to external help services, but it is not yet fixed. If this will be realised, maybe we can have a role in this.

What do you think, can restorative practices still be useful to cope with conflicts and distress now?

Of course, the language we use and the communication principles as well, can be useful to cope with conflicts and distress now. The question is how we can have contact. We can have contact by phone, but I have the experience that it is much more difficult than a face to face contact. But still possible. I hear the need of offenders in jails to do something helpful, something restorative, like making mouth masks, like helping in the outside world, even with risk to become ill themselves, but they would still like to do something for society.

"It feels as if the disease would come in our house and our lives through the stories."

What is the impact of the situation on you personally?

As I told you in our e-mail exchange, I was confronted myself with feelings of stress and felt exhausted, trying to combine my work at home with the follow up of schoolwork and other things of my children. My husband works at home also. He heard about lot of people having corona themselves, or their family members being diagnosed with corona. This influences the atmosphere, it feels as if the disease would come in our house and our lives through the stories. It affects my feelings that things are not predictable at all, and it takes away my sleep now and then. 

It was difficult to accept my limitations in this because my colleagues are going on in the same difficult circumstances. I became too emotional so I decided to contact my doctor and now I have a week to focus on my family and to support the schoolwork of my children. For now that’s enough. Yet, even now, I cannot stop reading my mails, when some of my clients are telling me how they cope with these circumstances, and then I feel so involved that I still react. It is difficult to stop, as you see, I also wanted to give you some answers…

How do you experience the current crisis? What are your concerns and challenges?  We are interested in hearing from you and sharing your perspective!  Send your update to and/or contact Bálint Juhász for details.