Expanding restorative and growing healthy communities
This is a blog by Inger Brit Lowater and Benjamin Fisk, PhD students supervised by Dr. Jon
Hobson at University of Gloucestershire.
In a ‘Building a New Reality’ (BANR) webinar hosted by Ted and Josh Wachtel on Wednesday 16th October 2024, we discussed the relational and restorative work taking place in Gloucestershire. With their ongoing 4-part seminar series ‘Expanding Restorative’, Ted and Josh are focusing on how restorative practices can reshape societies, governance, and democracy. The first episode featured restorative justice luminaries Terry O’Connell, and Linda Kligman, President of the IIRP.
When we attended a previous BANR seminar in 2023, Ted and Josh were surprised to see so many people from Gloucestershire in attendance. They reached out to us as they wanted to understand who these people were and what kind of work was taking place in Gloucestershire.
We set up a video call in March 2024 to explore further and realized that there was a lot of synergy between the work in Gloucestershire and Ted’s thinking about how restorative communities grow. We had the pleasure of spending time with Ted in Tallinn, Estonia for the European Forum of Restorative Justice Conference in May 2024. We developed our relationship over conversations, dinner, and dancing, and agreed to keep in touch and explore further opportunities for collaboration soon.
In September 2024, Ted and Josh reached out to us with the idea of presenting the restorative landscape in Gloucestershire alongside journalist Kerra Bolton, winner of the New York Times Award for Outstanding Journalism and author of Restorative Communities: From Conflict to Conversations.
Inspired by Ted’s groundbreaking work, Kerra did research with communities in Detroit, Michigan, and in Belgium, where she developed her ideas on how restorative communities can exist when practices are embedded in the six facets of societal needs described by Ted.
Gloucester as an allotment, growing relational and restorative practice in the community
On the face of it, the ‘big three’ areas in the Gloucestershire where restorative practices have produced crops of substantial yield are Gloucestershire Constabulary, Gloucestershire County Council (GCC), and University of Gloucestershire (UoG). For the sake of the metaphor, they’re a bit like our Del Monte or Tesco. But when you till that soil a little further, these larger organisations are not ‘restorative organisations’ themselves: they have areas where restorative work is taking place. They include Restorative Gloucestershire, commissioned by the Office of Police and Crime Commissioner, the Relational and Restorative Practice Team and the Family Group Conferencing service in GCC, and many more that you can hear about in the seminar recording itself.
The growth of restorative practice has been more like a community allotment – lots of individuals, working hard in their patch, sharing their practices (and produce) with their neighbours. There is no overarching control of all that is restorative in Gloucestershire, although the ‘big three’ are where funding is. They have the buying power, and legitimacy is gained by having association with them.
What has been growing and what still needs to be planted?
The restorative harvest in Gloucestershire is diverse, and we illustrated this with three case studies. The first case study showed how one secondary school dealt with a severe online bullying case around sexual orientation and race. Experienced facilitators from Restorative Gloucestershire sensitively worked with students, parents and staff to develop understanding and repair harm over a period of 10 months.
The second case study showcased one of the schools on the Relational Schools Programme offered by the Restorative Practice team in GCC. It detailed the relational and restorative journey of one secondary school – boosting wellbeing among students and staff, significantly reducing permanent and fixed term exclusions, and ultimately helping to improve their OFSTED rating to Good.
The final case study illustrated how implementing restorative principles can change the way a service is delivered. The Preparation for Adulthood Support Team in GCC have implemented the Social Discipline Window model, which means working with people rather than doing things to them or for them, to be less reactive and co-create better interventions with the young people they support.
The case studies highlighted how restorative practices are becoming embedded in several of Ted’s six facets of societal need: learning, governance, care, justice, enterprise, and spirit. However, there is much further to go, especially in the facet of enterprise and local business. This got us thinking about the potential role of sports teams in the county. The multiple football, cricket, and rugby teams which play a key role in the spirit of local communities should be future collaborators.
So, whilst some of the attendees from Gloucestershire felt that we painted a bit of a ‘rosy’ picture about what’s happening locally, they appreciated the opportunity to reflect on the many positives taking place. There has been incredible success and growth within restorative practice locally, driven by key individuals in services. Despite ongoing funding challenges and political fluctuations, we are hopeful that grassroots development can continue to strengthen Gloucestershire’s potential as a truly restorative community.
You can watch a full recording of the webinar here.
Ted recently published a new paper, ‘Expanding Restorative’, building on his seminal work in ‘Defining Restorative’ for the International Institute of Restorative Practices (IIRP) back in 2013. You can read it here.
