Greetings from the Sunshine Coast in sunny Queensland.
When I think about my journey in the restorative justice world, I’m always reminded that when I stumbled into the landscape, everything I had done professionally before seemed like preparation for the Big One! My work in the education, first as a biology teacher, then a school counsellor had taken me into conflict resolution territory, to Critical Incident Response systems and into whole of school systems – particularly in response to bullying.
When I look back now on those early days, it makes complete sense to me that this was readying me for RJ, and now better understood as Restorative Practice. I had been exploring the notion of harm – to people and relationships - without knowing it in an explicit way. It wasn’t a big leap!
In the intervening decades, aside from developing and expanding my own practice and training and writing capacity, my interests have developed to include the vital business of culture change - a most important aspect for schools and other workplaces wanting to implement this approach. The issue of readiness is an aspect that few organisations consider, along an understanding of the long haul that the change process actually involves.
I also joke that in the early days, I was so excited about the possibilities of RP that I couldn’t sleep. After all these years, the excitement hasn’t waned one bit, but at least it doesn’t keep me awake any longer!