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Restorative Practice - trying something different
When we look at restorative practice in Scotland, we find that awareness of the term and access to a restorative service is patchy. This is also true of restorative justice services - in the Scottish Sentencing and Penal Policy Commission report published earlier this month access was described as “fragmented and not universally available”.
In recent years, some progress has been made in developing pilots and best practice, and yet there are still many people who are unfamiliar with the term ‘restorative practice’, let alone knowledgeable about what is involved. Perhaps it may be useful to provide some terminology here:
1) in its most simplest form, restorative practice is a technique for assisting one party to help repair the harm they caused to the other party.
2) restorative justice is restorative practice within the criminal justice system - i.e. where a criminal offence has or has allegedly taken place.
So what have we at the Scottish Community Mediation Centre been doing to help grow both knowledge and expertise in restorative practice? Since 2017, we have been delivering each year an accredited Restorative Skills course, appealing to a wide range of people from different sectors.
In more recent years, we have successfully run a one-day Introduction to Restorative Practice workshop. This has been designed for team leaders, managers and workers interested in setting up a restorative service, or working in a restorative way. This has proven to be very popular and feedback from learners has been consistently positive.
In 2026 are going to try something different. We will continue to deliver our six-day Restorative Skills course and our one-day introductory workshop, but we will also be offering a short taster workshop. This new workshop introduces people to the basic principles and process of restorative practice.
Within restorative practice different terminology is used in different areas, and for those new to the area this can cause confusion. This short workshop will – hopefully – go some way to demystify some of the terminology surrounding restorative practice.
This brand-new workshop will be held for the first time on the 29th of April. If you are interested in learning more, information on how to book a place can be found at our website
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