Transforming Conflict

09/12/2022

I am really excited to be one of the trainers on the EFRJ Winter Academy, working alongside Hanne De Hertog from ARKTOS. The course takes place in Leuven, Belgium from Jan 30th - February 3rd 2022. More details of the course are available on the EFRJ website:

https://www.euforumrj.org/en/events/winter-academy-2023

Our course is for those working in educaional and youth settings. We suggest you bring a colleague (strength in numbers!) and we very much welcome senior leaders as you will be the ones to change the policies and protociols to enable restorative practice to flourish. You will also be the models of best practice - being the change you would like to see.

In the fifteen hours we have together we will look at what we can do to change the way we respond to conflict, challenge and harm when working with other people - adults as well as children and young people. By changing the messages we give ourselves about what we see and hear we change what emotions are coming up for us, and this impacts hugely on how we respond. Once we learn how to get ourselves into what we call 'the restorative zone' we are ready to engage with empathy and respect.



Practising a few simple skills and processes together will develop our competence and confidence to support ourselves, and others, to move forward, putting things right if they have gone wrong or simply having clearer more positive and productive pathways for the future. We will also experience pro-active community-building circles - spaces in which relationships can grow as people learn to laugh together, have fun and also share more deeply of themselves. These circles are the foundational practice of restorative institutions. There are many models of circle practice in the restorative world - ours are inspired by decades-long practice in UK schools of something called Circle Time (with acknowledgment given to pioneers of this process like George Robinson, Barbara Maine, Teresa Bliss and Jenny Mosley.)

Please share this information with your networks. The course is participative and experiential. It will be run in English and we will need you to be comfortable enough in this language to work in pairs and small groups as well as in the round. We do appreciate that this may exclude many people. If you, or people you know, are interested in learning more about restorative practice in schools and youth settings (including residential care) but would prefer to attend a course in a different language then please do get in touch. We may well know excellent trainers in your own country who could help. Alternatively we can offer something on-line if you can provide an interpreter.

30/03/2022

RJWorld 2022
It is nearly time for the next on-line international conference on restorative justice
https://youtu.be/IrJuU495_uI
Invigorate your restorative core with an incredible line-up of over 50 world-leading restorative thought-leaders (including Transforming Conflict's director Belinda Hopkins)
Share and learn in our social network environment from April 23-30, 2022
Speakers will share on a broad range of topics: Innovation / Systems / Practice / Communities / Trauma-informed practice / Prisons / Racism and de-colonising / Youth Justice / Schools / Sexual violence / Gender issues

RJ World is supported by the world's leading restorative justice organisations.

Purchase your tickets here...
https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/rj-world-2022-econference-tickets-251671705847?aff=TransformingConflict

A global gathering for Restorative Justice advocates. 50 speakers over 8 days.

01/02/2022

Please read this important article - if you are a teacher, if you have children in school , if you have any influence in schools whatsoever .......... Please share as widely as you can. Teachers and children are being worn down and oppressed by the kind of structural violence described here.

The violence in assessment: excellence, conformity and uniformity vs The care in appreciation: development, plurality and difference Never mind anti bullying week – what about a week in our schools free of all assessment, judgement, and criticism? Is the use of assessment in schools contributing t...

06/11/2021

Welcome and thank you to everyone who has recently liked this page.
Director Belinda Hopkins is travelling to Poland tomorrow to take part in a conference in Wrocław next week. She will deliver a short presentation as part of a panel on the topic of how the values and princiles of restorative justice practice can build social capital. The following day she will facilitate a workshop considering how schools need restorative practice more now than ever before.
This will be Belinda's first travel outside of the UK since she travelled back from Slovenia in March 2020!
But the wonderful Zoom platform has brough many opportunities to connect with colleagues in Ireland, Catalonia, Belgium, Estonia and Lithuania as well to stay connected with colleagues in the UK.
We may have been quiet on this page but we are busy behind the scenes. Thank you for your interest and encouragement.

10/04/2021

New research by Jo Warin and Rebecca Hibbin from Lancaster University about restorative practice in schools now on our website:

An interesting new doctoral thesis entitled An examination of restorative justice conferences in a primary school using conversation analysis by Sadie Westrup (2015) can be accessed from Cardiff University following this link:

25/03/2021

Shocked but maybe not surprised by this news today. How much systemic and structural racism is there in British schools today? What can we do to address it?
Can a restorative approach help and what more do we need to do? Of course valuing every human being, giving them a voice and taking time to listen to the message beneath the words is absolutely crucial. But there is so much more we need to do to address the issues mentioned in the article. What is going on here?

Exclusive: analysis of racial disparities in education system raises concerns over ‘criminalisation of children’

13/05/2020

RESTORing safe and healthy schools in the midst of the crisis
All over Europe teachers have been doing their best to support their students at home. Some have had to learn on-line skills from scratch, using platforms like Zoom to engage the class either in individual learning or in class sessions. And now many countries are facing the challenge of supporting children and young people as they return to school. Much is being written about the social and emotional challenges these young students are likely to face. There are huge concerns about the mental health of young people who have been affected in all sorts of ways by what is still happening.
Schools face an unprecedented challenge right now: how will they come back together in the school classrooms, corridors and playgrounds in ways that are physically safe and also emotionally and relationally healthy?
This question sparked a collective of UK-based education practitioners and researchers into action. Transforming Conflict’s director Belinda Hopkins has been proud to be part of this collective, working with esteemed restorative colleagues to help with the thinking, planning and the actions that will be needed to help schools and the people within them to heal from what has happened, and to come back together stronger and healthier than before.
RESTORE is a collective of Head Teachers, consultants, researchers and charities working in and with UK schools. We are united in a shared belief in the value of the philosophy and practice of restorative approaches to help schools at this unprecedentedly difficult time.
Here is the link to the website:
https://restoreourschools.wordpress.com/
The RESTORE acronym serves as an anchor to help school leaders plan for the next phase of coming back together as a school community, however that is managed:
Recognition - that everybody will have been affected differently by the pandemic.
Empathy - for the differing ways people are dealing with this extraordinary event.
Safety - both physical and emotional safety will have been threatened and need to be restored.
Trauma - individual and collective trauma will make itself shown and will need help to heal.
Opportunity - to rethink what matters and reshape what we do and how we do it.
Relationships - reconnecting and (re)building inclusive and responsive relationships.
Engagement - in our own health and well-being and with the issues that affect us.
The write-up for each theme includes a definition of the theme, why it particularly matters at this time, and some suggested questions to guide thinking and planning.
We will be adding more practical methods and resources in the coming days and weeks. These resources that we are co-creating are shared freely, for anyone to use as a complete tool or to dip into. Please feel free to share this with any colleagues for whom it may be useful.
We actively encourage you to make contact with us via the website to let us know what we might provide that would be of value to you.

Providing a restorative perspective

10/03/2020

Belinda writes:
I have had a very positive time in Slovenia. On March 6th I gave a keynote presentation to about 150 teachers (mostly primary/special needs) and then 2 workshops on building community and a sense of belonging in the classroom.
Inspired by the virus theme (!) I made an analogy with spreading the peace virus by infecting each other with our enthusiasm for the core values and beliefs of restorative practice.
I then spent 3 days with a wonderful group of people from Slovenia, Serbia, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania and Latvia. For some it was further training in restorative practice with the focus on face to face meetings, building on what we did last time we met. For about half it was all new. A differentiated class!!!!
I am so impressed with everyone - at the conference and on the course - using English. It is hard enough to learn new ideas and skills but then to do skills practice in another language - trying to find words for new concepts- this was what so impressed and touched me.

14/10/2019

Transforming Conflict's director Belinda Hopkins writes: I was delighted and honoured to be invited to co-train at the European Forum for Restorative Justice Summer School in Gdansk this Summer.
There were wonderful people there, we had fun, we also learnt lots from each other. It is well worth coming to next time.

Gdansk, Poland

07/10/2019

Belinda Hopkins, Transforming Conflict's director, writes -
Greetings from Kyiv, Ukraine.. I am here for one week running the training for Trainers course here with the people I originally introduced to restorative practice back in the spring of this year.
They have been using their skills with family , f8iends and at work since then and are now working in groups to practice delivering the Five Modules of the course to us, and receiving feedback.
Day 1 was good - great to see everyone again and interesting to see how people are doing things.

27/07/2019

Belinda Hopkins writes : enjoy my new blog about the links between restorative justice, social justice and climate justice.

I am on my way home from Gdansk where I have been for the last week. What a wonderful week of sharing skills and knowledge, laughter and tears, fun and hard work, with a group of restorative practitioners from all over Europe (and one person from India!). We were there for the European Forum for Re....