We have found that Restorative practices can be very helpful in situations outside of the court process. We have experience working with schools, workplaces and community groups, and are open to receiving referrals from anyone.
However, it is important to note that participation in our process is entirely voluntary for all parties. While we have contracts with the Ministry of Justice and the Department of Corrections, we need to source additional funding for referrals that are fully outside of these contracts.
A standard restorative process costs our service roughly $1,500; this will be higher depending on the number of parties involved and the complexity of the referral. Please do contact us if you are interested in using a restorative approach for your situation and we can explore if our service can assist.
Please contact us for a confidential conversation with our manager and a copy of our referral form. We will need to know a summary of what happened and contact details for who caused the harm and who was harmed. These parties will need to consent to receiving contact from our service.
Our process will usually begin with an initial phone call from one of our Coordinators. Our coordinators will briefly explain the next steps of the process and ask you if this something you want to do. Restorative Justice is completely voluntary, and you decline at any stage. If all parties wish to proceed further and our service is able to accept the referral we will assign two trained facilitators to work with you.
In the next stage of the process the facilitators working with you will arrange a time to meet with you to prepare you for a meeting with the other party. We encourage you to bring a support person with you to this meeting. The meeting will take place at a time and location that suits you. At this meeting our facilitators will ask you about what happened and go over what might happen at a meeting with the other party. They will be preparing you for the meeting with the other party and assessing if it is safe and appropriate for a meeting to take place. This is an opportunity to tell your story privately with our facilitators, information from this meeting is NOT shared with the other party.
If you decide to continue to the next step and our facilitators assess that it is safe and appropriate to do to so, they will arrange for a conference meeting to take place. This is a supported conversation between the parties, our facilitators will be there to guide you, keep the conversation safe and on track. You can ask for the meeting to be stopped at any point. It will take place at a neutral location. After the conference our facilitators will write a report, this is a summary of what was discussed. It may include quotes but is not a full transcript. We do not do audio recordings. You will receive a copy of this report.
Our facilitators will also check in with the parties after the conference. This will usually be a phone call to see how you are doing, check on the progress of any agreements made in the conference and assist you with accessing further supports if required.
