So I think the Restorative bit comes when people begin to listen to what's happening within. They begin to become more comfortable with themselves, they actually feel there are possibilities... better possibilities than they took before. They begin to value themselves, with kindness and compassion. They may understand that others have their own value also.
On May 11, 2023, Our Webmaster John Saward interviewed Restorative Practitioner Helen Hussey via Zoom. This is an edited transcript of the interview.
Helen, what is the Peace Education Program?
It's very simple. It is a media based program, with content from Peace Ambassador, Prem Rawat, interspersed with interviews, cartoons and time for your own reflection and sharing. People watch various DVDs on topics like peace, appreciation, inner strength, self-awareness, clarity, dignity, choice, hope, those sorts of things.
Then they have an opportunity to reflect on what feels right for them. It's not saying that anybody is lacking anything, what it actually does, it helps people just feel all the strengths and wonderful things about themselves, just the fact that they're alive.
And isn't that pretty, jolly, good, in that at first, it's like… it's holding a mirror up for people to look at who they are, not in comparison with anyone else.
Not to look at the world out there and say, Oh, it's all going wrong, but to look inside. And, to look at what?
I just see that... that's pretty special, just because we're alive. Basically, that's how it starts. The Peace Education Program is free. It's in 80 countries, translated into about 40 languages. It's facilitated by volunteers like me, who decided that this was something that resonated within them and so wanted to share it.
How did you come across it? How did you find your way into it?
I grew up in Melbourne, and I have friends in Melbourne still. A friend of mine was running it in Melbourne, and she was going to be doing a presentation and she said would I like to come over and have a look. As I go and visit family and friends, I said why not? So that's how come
All right. Let's backtrack a bit further back in your life. Tell us about your experience working with school children. You worked with Special Ed children?
Yes. I was originally trained in art, later on, I did postgraduate work in Special Ed. I've worked as a consultant with Special Ed, visiting many schools, assessing and supporting students, then planning with teachers, or the whole school.
I've also worked in a busy High School for 12 years with children with very, very different needs. The children might have literacy needs, behavioural challenges,or may have disabilities.
I ran the school at the Royal Hobart Hospital for a couple of years. My students were aged between 4 years and 18 years. I worked with the children, got to know their parents and liased with their usual school. I learned a lot from them all.
And does your interest in peace, in what Peace Education Program conveys, go back that far? When you were a teacher were you thinking about peace. At that time?
Oh, before that. I mean, first of all, I'm a human being. All sorts of stuff happens in your life. And somehow I was thinking there's got to be more, rather than, you know, wishing you could be like this or like that. I now know that just as I am is OK.
Is there some experience or event in your life or something that happened that moved you strongly in that direction or you've always been like that?
I remember when I was a kid. I grew up in Melbourne and I used to walk across the Kew Golf Course and just seeing the lovely, fabulous sunsets against the pine trees and stuff and just feeling beyond words, and religions and everything. Although I was brought up in a religious background. There is something more, beyond all reason, and so beautiful that it resonates and I could feel this.
You always felt that beauty and resonance.
Yes. I guess I've always had an appreciation and gratitude of just being part of it. If that makes sense. There have been millions of years before me, There will be millions after me, this is my time. I want to use it well.
What is it that gives you, Helen, value to the world, to life? What's your value?
I'm alive. That's my value. I'm alive.
And that's value enough, in itself, that being alive?
Absolutely. There is more to me than all my mistakes and all my achievements. I mean, I can rattle off achievements like… and I can rattle off mistakes… but being alive is a wonderful gift.
Tell us a bit now about your work with homeless men.
Right. Having run the Peace Education Program in various community settings, for six years. I began attending JUSTAS, (Justice Tasmania) meetings. Networking from there, I was invited to a workshop for Glenorchy Council on Bystander Intervention Training for a Safer Community. As a follow up from that, I worked in schools in Glenorchy, on Peace is Possible - Peace Begins with Me and ran the Peace Education Program In the Glenorchy community.
Then I was invited to the breakfast launch for The Program for Safer Communities. I happened to be sitting next to somebody from Bethlehem House. They just said, Oh, how come you're here? And I just said a bit about the Peace Education program, and they said, they were there from Bethlehem House. They said, oh look, I reckon this might go well with us. That was 4 years ago.
And that's how it began with them.
[Bethlehem House is a 24-hour service centre for homeless men and men at risk of homelessness, situated in North Hobart - https://www.bethlehemhouse.org.au/]
Let's go back now to the question of the value of a human being, which we've touched on.
I'm imagining - I'm fairly sure - that some of these homeless men have trouble finding their own inherent value, and feel valueless in society, perhaps because they're thinking they're not achieving, they're not contributing. They're not loved. Perhaps they're a burden.
Many of them are just straight out of prison. In Tasmania, you're not allowed out of prison unless you have got an address to go to. Bethlehem house is a parolee address. It is run by St Vincent DePaul, who provide a wonderful facility.
I'm not quite sure what the proportion is at any time, but a lot of men are recently out of prison. Others of them also have mental health issues, family breakdown, all manner of things, which can corrode their feelings of their own value. It is a place of transition. I wear a lanyard with a call button on it. If pressed, I have been told, Police come from everywhere.
Look, I feel privileged to be there. Some men come into the PEP program and stay for the whole program. Others just drop by for five minutes. We run it in the common room. Some will stay in the other part of the room, as if to say we'll find out about this, but I don't want it now. Then maybe a week or so later they'll come and listen to more of it, but we are always there.
There was one man who'd been coming quite a lot. And then he had really bad news about the health of his child. He said to me, Look, I'm really upset. I don't think I can come today. And I said, Well, why don't you come for as long as you can, and then go, and if you feel you can come back, So he did. He came in and out four or five times. And afterwards, he said, Oh, look, I'm so sorry. I, kept going out. I said yeah, hey, but you kept coming back, didn't you? You should have seen his smile.
So I've got various quotes from the guys.
One of them said to people making a noise outside, Shut up. We want to find peace.
And another said, I've got some anger issues, I was laughing and that made me feel good. I need to bring compassion to myself.
I mean, look, people are so used to saying they are useless. But just quietly, sitting with them, feeling, hey, you're a human being and you're worth something.
And that's really, where it begins. You just make the program available, and they will either be open to it or not.
But I've had men who just cry, and I've actually come away afterwards, and I've cried because they've shared stories, terrible stories of abuse and sadness.
I'm not denying there's a lot of cruelty and horrible things in the world. Whether it's, you know, locally, in Australia or whether it's terrible tragedy like in Ukraine and that the only thing I can do quietly as a human being, is just say, yep, that's all happening. But inside everybody there is peace, and just allowing people to open up and feel that for themselves, one person at a time.
Not like this is my idea of it, but their own idea of it. Feeling it for themselves.
You know, that's what I try… that's what I try and do. Just look, this is available. Something you can do. And if you want to listen to it, that's great. If you don't, that's fine.
Sounds like you have a knack of encouraging, inducing people to feel that relaxation in themselves.
I think the program does it. Even if they only listen for a little bit. It gives them a different way of looking. It can calm people down.
The program is very concrete. There are various topics, presented by video clips, with speaking, interviews and cartoons, with humour and seriousness, but then we stop and there's time to reflect, and share thoughts on what we have just heard.
And there is a workbook. Sometimes people use it, sometimes they don't, but mainly stopping and just, well, you know, allowing some time, then asking would anyone like to say something about what we have just heard.? And sometimes nobody will say anything and that's perfectly okay.
But sometimes, all sorts of stuff comes out. And one guy said, I was narrow minded before, but now I'm open to the whole world.
It is interesting that I have the workbooks printed free of charge by all the political offices, Liberal, Labor, Greens and Independents. I have got to know them all through various activities in the community. Peace is something beyond party politics.
So it seems the reflexive, the reflection part of that process is the key.
I just want to wind up with one more question, which is an important one.
Can you tell us the connection with Restorative Practice in all we've just talked about?
If we are scattered all over the place and reacting to situations and each other, we are not in a really good place. And we will react rather than think or feel. Okay, so a good practice is just quietly thinking, how does this relate to me, what's happening here? Then choosing how we will respond.
And making a conscious choice?
Yeah, it is all about choice. If you're just reacting you're not, you're not choosing. And so this is where the Restorative comes in. Because people are actually seeing there are maybe different ways of looking at things and, and looking at them with clarity from their own emerging understanding. As someone begins to feel their own value, they can understand that others have value also.
You know, one guy said, Look, if I'd have known this before, there's no way I'd have been in prison.
So I think the Restorative bit comes when people listen to what's happening and then they begin to make better choices. They begin to become more comfortable with themselves, then they actually feel there are possibilities... better possibilities than they took before. They might take a domestic violence course, or literacy or anything, but they'll actually try with confidence something that they can do.
If someone is feeling powerless blaming this, blaming that, it's all everybody else's fault. But when they accept responsibility for their own lives, and make choices from there…
One of the guys said to me, it's okay to be myself and, it's okay to not know all the answers.
It makes a lot of sense. And what I'm getting by listening to you, is you're framing restorative practice as something that takes place inside. Inside one person. We might tend to think restorative practice is something that takes place in a group of people… and it certainly does… particularly between a facilitator and somebody else… and it does… but the perspective you're bringing on it is ultimately, restorative practice takes place in me, John.
And, that's a very good perspective to hold in balance with the reality that facilitation is needed. And we need help in this at times. But if one doesn't come to the point of reflection and seeing - as you put it… we’re not able to make those different choices.
Because of that reflective process, I'm able to make different choices and hopefully out of that have more loving relationships. That's perhaps the kernel of Restorative Practice. Reflection, better choices, better outcomes. Would you agree?
Absolutely. Just navigating through all that stuff that people have to navigate through in life. Just every day, so much happens, but having awareness of an anchor inside, through thick and thin, gives me hope and gratitude. And hopefully, along the way, yes, there are kind , loving relationships, but just being part of them with kindness and compassion.
Don’t give offence, don’t take offence and don’t seek revenge.
I also like the saying of Gandhi, ‘Be truthful, gentle and fearless.’
Recently a lot of people I know have died. I've got a neighbour who's now dying, she's a lovely lady. And she was just talking to me about the sunrise. She was just telling me about the colours and really, when she was describing the beauty, it was obvious that the beauty that she was seeing is also beauty within her. And she could have been whinging and moaning and frightened, but she said no, she wasn't. But really she was just appreciating every day and all her friends with gratitude.
So yeah, I guess you know, once people feel that there actually is beauty inside of them, it might be the very first time, that they will realize their value. Maybe not physically or anything else, but just they're alive and isn't this special.
We're going to finish now. Do you have a final thing to say?
There was one elderly lady in the Peace Education Program, at a Community House, who sometimes couldn't come because her husband had Alzheimer's. If the carer didn't arrive in time she couldn't come. I had met him, so I suggested that she might bring him. God knows what he got out of it. He sat quietly holding her hand and afterwards he had a smile from here to here.
Thank you, Helen.
NED Foundation is very interested in disseminating the stories that Restorative Practitioners have to tell. Our Webmaster, John Saward, is available to help form those stories via interview. Practitioners who have entries on this site are invited to use our contact form to arrange an interview via Zoom (preferably) or phone. For now, we are only presenting text transcripts.