Events Related to Projects

The final conference of the project “Implementing RJ with Child Victims“, coordinated by the IJJO- International Juvenile Justice Observatory, in which the European Forum for Restorative Justice was a partner, was in Brussels on 7 December 2018.

As partner in the EU-funded project ‘Victims of road traffic offences’, the European Forum for Restorative Justice (EFRJ) co-organised a one-day seminar in Leuven the 20th April 2018. 

This seminar had the objective to share preliminary findings and experiences on Restorative Justice  (RJ) in road traffic offences. The targeted audience was RJ practitioners and experts but also other professionals like victim support workers and victim-volunteers. 

The project focused on three main topics:
1. Needs of road traffic victims, with focus on information & support
2. Restorative justice for people involved in road traffic offences, highlighting also the role of the police, the judiciary and social services
3. Interdisciplinary cooperation between the different groups involved (e.g. the police, the judiciary, victim support services, the medical sector, self-help groups of victim-volunteers, insurance agencies).

The project was coordinated by Rondpunt (Flemish service supporting victims of road traffic accidents) with the support of the Justice programme of the EU. Partners in this project are Moderator (Flemish RJ service) and the KU Leuven Institute of Criminology. Associate partners are the EFRJ, the European Federation of Road Traffic Victims (FEVR)  and Victim Support Europe.

The International Juvenile Justice Observatory (IJJO), in partnership with KU Leuven and the European Forum for Restorative Justice organized a training session on Restorative Justice, with a special attention on child victims, on 8-9 November 2017 in Leuven (Belgium).

This training took place in the framework of the IJJO led project ‘Implementing Restorative Justice with Child Victims‘, co-funded by the DAPHNE programme of the European Union.
In addition to examining restorative justice practices (mediation, conferencing), the training placed emphasis on implementation measures.

See below the programme and the presentations of the training. 

On the 9th-16th October 2016, the European Forum for Restorative Justice (EFRJ) organised a Training Course (TC) under the Erasmus+ programme in Leuven entitled ‘Restorative ME’.

RESTORATIVE ME provided participants with strategies, methodologies and tools of work typical of mediators stimulating therefore constructive communication, emphatic dialogue and acceptance of different points of view and positions as a resource. The skills and expertise of the trainers provided a unique opportunity for participants to broaden their knowledge of restorative justice practices and principles through a variety of non-formal education techniques, workshops, and interactive sessions. The formative visits to the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, the Secretariat of the EFRJ and a local organisation engaged in mediation enriched the training with insights from research and practice on restorative justice.

OBJECTIVES

• Raising awareness of restorative justice approaches within European youth workers;
• Empowering youth workers with strategies and methods typical of mediators;
• Developing youth workers competences in managing conflicts using approaches based on dialogue and cooperation among parties involved and by providing a specific set of skills;
• Enhancing emphatic dialogue and stimulating teamwork attitude to improve the overall employability and professionality of the youth workers attending the TC and giving useful tools to their sending organisations;
• Promoting international exchange of practices and tools to deal with conflict based on the different background and experience of the represented countries. 

This was the final seminar (26th January 2016) of the project Restorative Justice in Cases of Domestic Violence, Best practice examples between increasing mutual understanding and awareness of specific protection needs.

The project was financed by the European Commission (JUST/2013/JPEN/AG/5487) and coordinated by the Verwey-Jonker Institute.

The partner organisations were:
Austria: Institute of Conflict Research (IKF) & Institute for the Sociology of Law and Criminology (IRKS)
Belgium: European Forum for Restorative Justice (EFRJ)
Denmark: National Organisation of Women’s Shelters in Denmark (LOKK)
Finland: Department of Criminal Policy of the Ministry of Justice (MJF)
Greece: European Public Law Organization (EPLO)
The Netherlands: Verwey-Jonker Institute (VJI),
United Kingdom (England&Wales): Independent Academic Research Studies (IARS)

The focus of the two years project was on developing minimum standards on the use of restorative justice (RJ) in domestic violence cases. It started with the following questions: Can RJ be a solution in cases of domestic violence and if so, under what circumstances? This project seeks to fill research gaps, pull together existing knowledge and to gain a better understanding of the risks and potentialities of using restorative justice in cases of ‘intimate partner violence’ (IPV). 

The research shows that the use of restorative justice in IPV cases is happening in Europe and in the countries involved in this study. However, there is significant diversity in practice at the local level.

You can download here all the presentations. 

The final conference of the ALTERNATIVE project on restorative justice in intercultural settings took place on 16-18 November 2015 in Leuven (Belgium). The conference was titled: Justice and Security in Intercultural Europe: Exploring Alternatives.

ALTERNATIVE is a four-year research project funded by the FP 7 Programme of the European Commission. Its aim is to look for different ways to define justice and security approaches in intercultural settings through implementing restorative justice practices.

The ALTERNATIVE project challenges discourses of (in)security, which claim that ‘cultural difference’ leads to inevitable social breakdown. In periods of increasing social tensions and perceptions of insecurity, culture often becomes a refracting lens through which conflict perceptions are formed. These (in)security discourses, imbued with moral credibility and political authority, then produce exclusionary and shielding mechanisms for social groups to coexist, mechanisms which often have led to jeopardising both perceptions of justice and active citizenship, in exchange for ‘security’. ALTERNATIVE looks for different and more constructive ways of dealing with these (in)security issues.

The conference brought together scholars, researchers, policy makers and practitioners working in the fields of justice, security, intercultural communication, conflict resolution and community building. This final event was organised by the KU Leuven Institute of Criminology together with the European Forum for Restorative Justice and in collaboration with the project partners Norwegian Social Research Institute (Norway), Institute for the Sociology of Law and Criminology (Austria), Foresee Research Group (Hungary), Victimology Society of Serbia (Serbia) and the University of Ulster (United Kingdom).

To know more about the final conference, take a look on the ALTERNATIVE website.
Read also the opinion pieces of the researchers on the ALTERNATIVE blog and watch the project films on the ALTERNATIVE Films Online Platform. 

In the framework of the ALTERNATIVE project, the Norwegian project partner NOVA organised a 1.5 days regional workshop on 11 and 12 February 2015 in Oslo, Norway aiming to bring together participants interested in restorative justice in intercultural settings from the Scandinavian countries and beyond. 

More details can be found on the ALTERNATIVE website. 

The final conference of the KU Leuven coordinated Daphne Project ‘Developing integrated responses to sexual violence: an interdisciplinary research project on the potential of restorative justice’ (JUST/2011/DAP/3350), took place from 12 to 14 November 2014 at the University of Leuven.