Lettre d'information du Forum Européen de Justice Restaurative

European Forum for Restorative Justice

LEUVEN, BELGIUM, 25 July 2011

Dear friends of the European Forum for Restorative Justice,

With this Newsflash I would like to inform you about the following upcoming events:

1) International Workshops "Victims and restorative justice " - February 2012

It is my pleasure to inform you about the international workshops "Victims and restorative justice" These workshops are an integral part of the EU co-funded project ‘Victims and restorative justice' which is currently being implemented by the European Forum for Restorative Justice, with the cooperation of Victim Support Europe and in partnership with researchers and service providers in Finland, Austria and the Netherlands (see www.euforumrj.org/projects). The project consists of empirical research into the experience of victims who have participated in or have been offered participation in victim-offender mediation.

Three workshops are foreseen: on the 2nd of February, 2012 in Tilburg, the Netherlands (topic: Connecting victim-offender mediation to victim policy), on the 10th of February in Helsinki, Finland (topic: Needs and rights of vulnerable victims in mediation) and on the 28th of February 2012 in Vienna, Austria (topic: Matching mediation methodology, victims and offenders and what has happened between them). During the workshops the preliminary results of the research in each of the 3 participating countries will be presented, accompanied by presentations of the service providers in each of those countries as well as an analysis of the local results by academic experts. The main aim of the workshops is to actively discuss these preliminary findings and debate what the role of victims in restorative justice is and ought to be. Therefore, active participation of all participants will be stimulated.

The workshops will bring together representatives from victim and offender services, from the restorative justice field, as well as legal professionals and others interested in the topic. The discussions will contribute to a better understanding of victim's needs and expectations as a central concern in the RJ approach. We expect the presence of a diverse range of experts, practitioners, policy makers and academics, largely connected with criminal matters, who can provide an interesting and stimulating forum for reflection and exchange.

The amount of available places for each of the workshops is limited to 25, the admission fee is 30 Euro. All this information, together with the registration form, will be available on the Forum's website this autumn.

Please feel free to forward this information to anyone you think could be interested.

I hope to see many of you at the workshops next February!

If you have any further questions, don't hesitate to contact me.

2) Other upcoming events

• 20 - 22 October 2011, Lisbon (Portugal): International Congress on Mediation - Restorative Justice: Names of some the speakers are: Dan Van Ness, Jean Schmitz, Lode Walgrave and Ted Wachtel. More information can be found here.
• 17 - 19 January 2012, Budapest (Hungary): Final conference 'Responsibility-taking, relationship-building and restoration in prisons' of the Mediation and restorative justice in prison settings-project. More information can be found here.

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact me.

Have a nice summer!

Best wishes,
Karolien Mariën

European Forum for Restorative Justice 
Hooverplein 10
3000 Leuven - Belgium
Tel.: 0032 16 32 54 29
Fax: 0032 16 32 54 74
Website: www.euforumrj.org