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Canberra Restorative Community
The Canberra Restorative Community is a growing and open network of practitioners, professionals, academics and people interested in expanding their knowledge of restorative practice.
Through the mechanism of the ACT Restorative Justice Network, we aim to build Canberra as a restorative community through growing and widening the circle of people who are interested in connecting, sharing and promoting their experiences and knowledge of restorative justice approaches. Our goal is to expand restorative justice principles and practice across the Canberra community.
A restorative approach starts from a relational understanding of human beings – of who we are and what we need from one another. The fostering of relationships and connections that are just and healthy, marked by equality of respect, care and dignity, is the common goal core to all that we do.
Being a restorative city is a vision of what it means to be community, to live in community, and to be part of the Canberra community. It is focused on asking: How can we live and work in ways that foster the connections to one another that we need to be well, to be safe and to flourish? It is as much about how you recognise and strive to address the problems of relationship and inclusion, and of difference, as of the harms of the past and the present.
Old Parliament House in Canberra. Photo: Sam Ilić.
We tend to think about restorative justice as only applying to the domain of justice, when in fact we could be thinking and asking questions about what would a restorative approach look like in the places we live, learn, work, play and pray. What would restorative approaches look like in our processes - in human resource management for instance, on our university campuses, in our directorates when dealing with each other, as colleagues or with those who are at the receiving end of our work? What might our sporting and recreational clubs look like if we adopted a restorative philosophy and starting position?
Simon Corbell, Attorney General, opening speech at the Canberra Restorative Community conference, 20 July 2015.
Canberra. Photo: Sam Ilić.
The ACT Restorative Justice Network of practitioners & champions aims to unite existing and emerging restorative justice leaders who have the energy, enthusiasm and capacity to create a community of practice across Canberra and local surrounds. The network is committed to sharing knowledge and insights through regular interaction through opportunities such as guest speakers, case studies, seminars, and peer collaboration across diverse professional groups.
The network includes experienced restorative justice practitioners and champions from services such as schools, health, corrections, juvenile justice, police, human resource management, Aboriginal services. They include school principals, team leaders, program managers, service managers and social workers.
2015 marks the 10th year of the Restorative Justice Act in the Australian Capital Territory and the expansion of the ACT’s restorative justice scheme. This network has grown out of seeing the potential for Canberra to adopt the principles of restorative practice more broadly in resolving disputes and problem-solving across the community.
