Restorative Justice Gives Youth a Voice: on the Experiences with the i-Restore 2.0 Project

The EFRJ has been running projects on restorative justice and children for a while. The i-Restore 2.0 project deepens these findings. The project is carried out in four different project countries, Greece, Estonia, the Netherlands and Romania. For this article, the newsletter editors talked to the country representatives.

The i-Restore 2.0 project (2022–2024) continues from where the i-Restore project (2019–2021) finished. The new initiative is EU funded and is coordinated by Terre des Hommes, Romania, the local branch of a Swiss based organisation for children’s rights and operating in several different countries. i-Restore 2.0 has the aim of strengthening the access to high quality restorative justice processes for children in contact with the law. In line with the EU Victims’ Rights Strategy, the project aims to empower children, including victims, to express their views about restorative justice through digital and child-led creative approaches; increase awareness of families, practitioners, policy makers and the media on restorative justice for children in criminal proceedings and increase the number of practitioners who can provide child-friendly restorative justice services.

During the first year of the project, a training scheme for professionals was developed and implemented in the four participating countries, including an online course but also basic and advanced trainings that were carried out face-to-face. Some of the upcoming project deliverables are:

• guidelines for professionals who conduct restorative justice with children,
• a media tool-kit,
• a digital assessment tool,
• a child-led resource,
• an awareness circles storybook,
• a learning from the field report and
• a policy brief on budgeting.

In this interview the representatives of each of the partner countries get to reflect on their experiences with the project so far and moreover, their experiences of working with children and restorative justice.

In Romania when they talk about a child, they refer to the age group 0–17 years old, as from the age of 18 legally you are considered an adult. A person is considered a child until they reach the age of majority at 18. However, the minimum age of criminal responsibility is twelve years of age. If a child under the age of 12 commits a criminal act, the child has no responsibility in any form; yet their parents or legal guardians may face criminal prosecution.

Helerin Välba works as a restorative justice coordinator at the Social Insurance Board in Estonia. While victim support workers have been using victim-offender mediation in Estonia for more than a decade now, children have come along only in 2020. Yet the experiences have been promising.

‘We work with many kinds of cases involving children: violence, hitting and fighting, also cases from schools like difficult relationships among children and bullying. Sometimes also cases from closed institutions and other complicated relationships,’ explains Helerin.

Annemieke Wolthuis works as a children’s rights’ consultant in the Netherlands, and is the local project coordinator for Restorative Justice Nederland, the national knowledge and invocation centre on Restorative Justice. In the Netherlands victim-offender mediation and other restorative approaches have been around since the 1990’s, as several simultaneous initiatives took place. Right from the start, many of those cases involved children.

‘Our cases can be very varied as restorative justice referrals are possible in different stages of the criminal process. We can deal with cases of theft or violence, but also with more complex case like, serious knife incidents, sexual violence, family violence and sometimes even in murder cases sufficient time after the incident when parties still have questions to the offender or to the victim on,’ explains Annemieke.

Panagiota Kanellopoulou works as Project Coordinator for the Access to Justice projects in Greece. Restorative justice is not a new legal term in Greece. It is reflected, for example, in the writings of Aristotle (‘epanorthotikon dikaion’/ ‘restorative law’). Today, Greek penal and civil law contain provisions that promote conciliation and mediation processes between offenders and victims and between the parties involved in disputes. 

‘As far as Greece is concerned, the most common offences involving children are property offences, such as theft, aggravated theft, robbery, burglary etc. The second most common are offences of violence such as insulting behaviour, bodily harm etc.,’ explains Panagiota.

Cristiana Bulgariu works as the project manager of the i-Restore 2.0 in Romania. Terre des hommes Romania has been implementing restorative justice based projects since at least 2019, with i-Restore phase 1 being a cornerstone for restorative justice in the country.

‘Children have been involved from the start. They are one of our key components when it comes to our activities in the field and what we do in Romania. We wish to create as many contexts for child participation as possible. As in many countries, in Romania children can be involved in a variety of offences from petty theft and burglary to vandalism, substance abuse, fights, domestic abuse, sexual offences etc. The most common ones would be substance abuse and acts of violence, especially related to the school environment, which is the place we as Terre des hommes Romania try to get involved as much as possible. That is because in addition to law enforcement and legislative measures, we consider that comprehensive social services are also necessary in order to address juvenile delinquency,’ explains Cristiana.

To get the discussion right on children and restorative justice requires a fundamental understanding of what is meant with ‘a child’ in the first place. The legal definition of a child differs slightly from country to country. In Romania when they talk about a child, they refer to the age group 0–17 years old, as from the age of 18 legally you are considered an adult. Likewise in Greece, where a person is considered a child until they reach the age of majority at 18. Moreover, In Greece the minimum age of criminal responsibility is twelve years of age. If a child is under the age of 12 commits a criminal act, the child has no responsibility in any form, yet their parents or legal guardians may face criminal prosecution.

Sometimes ‘a child’ may be far older than that. In the Netherlands sometimes criminal youth laws can be applied via the adolescents’ law, which refers to 18–23 year olds (often called youngsters or young adults) and in Estonia sometimes also to those under 29.

A general framework for the definition of a child is the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, according to which a child is someone who is under the age of 18. In many countries this is the upper limit of a child. In this article the word child is used referring to varied age groups, which may make the talking of the phenomenon difficult. Also, children develop very differently and the traits of working with the different age groups may differ, making it even more difficult to try to make universal descriptions of a child.

‘As far as Greece is concerned, the most common offences involving children are property offences, such as theft, aggravated theft, robbery, burglary etc. The second most common are offences of violence such as insulting behaviour, bodily harm etc.,’ explains Panagiota.

According to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, a child is someone who is under the age of 18, which in many countries is the upper limit of a child.

For all of the interviewees restorative justice and children is fundamentally about empowering children and young people, and about doing that in a safe environment.

‘Adults don’t always take children seriously, or they think they can order children around. But restorative justice gives youth a voice. They can express their thoughts and feel safe in doing so,’ underlines Helerin.

‘In most cases, the children need to be heard and feel they’re in a safe environment. Children need to be respected and feel you are paying attention sincerely to them and you are willing to actually listen to them when they talk to you and they will open up. They also need guidance. Every child wishes to resolve their conflicts and they need you to offer them a path that is appropriate to their needs,’ adds Cristiana.

All in all, restorative justice with children shares many same aspects with other restorative processes. For example, restorative justice with children allow for dealing with different aspects of the conflict at stake.

‘Many conflicts have a deeper level to them. What appears as a simple case of hitting someone, may be much more complex when talked about. Often there is a background story involved and the roles of victim and offender can get mixed,’ explains Helerin.

Also in connection to children it is important to allow a re-integration back to the society, as is explained by Annemieke: ‘Children and young people should be able to learn from their mistakes. At the same time, it is worthwhile showing that there is a reaction to bad behaviour, and not only a reaction, but also that there is a supportive network.’

The idea of a supportive network is important also with regards to the child victims.

‘At first the victim-support organisations were reluctant to work restoratively and they were “over” protective of the victims, but the bit with emotional recovery and finding answers to why me-questions are important for the victim. Now when restorative justice is better established in the law, policy and practice also victim support is more supportive and involved,’ says Annemieke.

The i-Restore 2.0 has worked through four Child Advisory Boards (CAB) which have been established in the partner countries. The aim of the boards is the involvement of children in the development of restorative justice measures as part of a participatory approach. A CAB is composed of young people aged 16–21. They represent different backgrounds, even within the different partner countries. Some of them are high school students, some go to vocational training and some have just started university. They have different experiences in interacting with both the legal and social systems. They receive training before they start. The CABs are systematically involved in project activities and the development of certain project outputs. They are very active in discussing the topic, making tools. The CABs have proven to be real success factors for i-Restore 2.0.

‘Many children report that participating in an Advisory Board, was the first time they felt that their views were taken into account, they are heard, and the content was actually shaped by the children themselves,’ explains Panagiota.

‘It’s impressive how they think so out-of-the-box. The opportunity to play a role in the Board has really allowed the Board members to excel, they readily say what they like and dislike about restorative justice, and are actively helping to develop the practices. It has been great to co-create with the young people themselves,’ says Annemieke.

‘I appreciate the CAB meetings and awareness circles in schools so much. It’s rewarding to have the direct feedback from the children when they ask why didn’t we do this before,’ Helerin notes.

Different restorative methods tend to have their typical traits in any case. Working with children brings an extra twist to it. All interviewees underline that but both Annemieke and Helerin think that the differences between working with children and/or with adults must be acknowledged.

‘I’d like it to be different from other mediations. The information shared should be levelled to what the young person can understand, including any mental disabilities, neuro diversity or learning difficulties,’ underlines Annemieke.

‘In fact when working with children, as opposed to adults you need to adapt your speech and style so that they can be comfortable and for them to better understand the subjects you speak about,’ explains Cristiana.

The special characteristics entail that restorative justice with children must be practised with care and skill and the adults involved must be specially trained.

‘Often mediators think they can just do the same thing as with adults, or if they have children of their own, they feel they know how to work with children, but that is not enough. That’s why it’s vital that the judges, police and mediators working with children are well trained into the rights of the child and have the skills needed. Here, the i-Restore 2.0 has been so useful, as it shares necessary tools with the professionals through specialised training,’ comments Annemieke.

Despite the trained adults, in the end it is important to remember that it is about the child.

‘A room full of adults can be very frightening. It’s good if the child can bring along a support person, closer to their age, like a friend, or a sibling. A good preparation is key,’ underlines Annemieke.

A fundamental point of departure for restorative justice with children is that the child can be supported by their parents or guardians during the process. Both the victim’s but also of the offender’s parents can be supportive in many ways.

‘Sometimes the parents are really glad of the opportunity to hear of the child’s perspective, of their needs and wishes, during the meeting. I remember a time when a mum was innately glad to have learned of the teen-aged child’s expectations, as she had thought a child of that age no longer needed that much attention from the parents. It has also happened that the victim’s parents know the young offender and know of the hard time he is having. For the parents it is then important to have a mediation organised to support the offender,’ Helerin explains.

‘Many parents are sorry for the victim, but also for their own child,’ adds Annemieke.

Having parents included in the process does, however, bring some special flavour to the process. One issue is that sometimes parents may become the obstacle to starting a restorative process.

‘Especially when their child is the victim, parents sometimes need convincing that restorative justice approaches are indeed the best approach for a child,’ explains Panagiota.

This can be simply because of the resistance of parents to new practices that can be radically different than what they are used to. Sometimes parents also try to explain away what has happened by explaining that in their childhood bullying in school was normal.

‘When it comes to how parents deal with their children, especially in conflict situations they tend to use the same methods that were applied to them when they were children, meaning punishments and sometimes even violence so that they can “teach their children a lesson”,’ notes Cristiana.

One issue is that sometimes the parents take too much space.

‘Sometimes parents are so protective that they want to speak for the child,’ acknowledges Helerin.

Panagiota agrees, ‘Some parents have the tendency to be overprotective of their child and deny any and all allegations. Given that in restorative justice the offender must take responsibility for their actions, it is difficult to overcome this tendency of the parents.’

‘Parents are sometimes more hurt than the children and they can really take over in the meeting. That’s why we always try to have a moment alone with the youngsters. Sometimes it also happens that something has happened between the child and the parent. In those cases you need support from the neighbourhood or from the school,’ explains Annemieke.

Sometimes parents also try to explain away what has happened by explaining that in their childhood bullying in school was normal. Cristiana agrees, ‘Times are changing at a fast paced rhythm and things that were usually done in the past are not that efficient or productive anymore and you have a generational gap that sometimes it is very difficult to work with. Sometimes then again the child is very shy and doesn’t want to talk. Sometimes the child has also told different versions of the events or not disclosed all the aspects of it at home. Then parents are surprised to hear about that during the meeting.’

The project has convinced the participants of the opportunities of working with children and restorative justice and they would encourage others for similar pilots. Although there are specialities to attend to, there is also so much material out there on the topic.

‘i-Restore 2.0. as such has produced a lot of useful information. In addition the international children’s rights framework and Tali Gal’s needs and rights approach are useful background materials to nurture thinking and working in the field,’ reminds Annemieke.

Panagiota also points out the pressing need for children to be fully aware of their rights and their implications, to receive information and support throughout criminal proceeding: ‘Currently, we implement two Access to Justice projects, i-Restore 2.0, focusing on promoting access to quality restorative justice processes for children in contact with the law and i-Access My Rights, which aims to improve access to information and legal assistance in the field of digital justice for child victims by creating an AI tool that is above all child-centric.’

‘During the project study visit in Greece I was impressed with the community feeling they had managed to build up in the child justice field. In addition, there was a determination of not giving a child not just a second chance, but giving five more chances,’ explains Annemieke.

Despite all the theoretical, evidence-based materials out there, a vital learning from the project has been the need to include children and young people in the development of approaches concerning them. This way the restorative justice method can be embedded not only in the way we do during the mediations but also in how we develop restorative practices.

‘Learn how to truly listen to the children you are working with. Children want and need to be taught how to manage their feelings, how to handle conflictual situations and how to communicate. It is really important never to consider any child a lost cause, every child deserves the chance to learn and be better and no matter how difficult it may be at the start, never lose hope in that child,’ underlines Cristiana.

‘In order to work with children you have to first love what you do. Patience, responsibility, authenticity seem to be key prerequisites. It is really important to ensure that the child is actively involved, and empowered, knowing that their voice is being heard and decisions are not being made for them without them,’ says Panagiota.

Helerin underlines that it all starts with the right mindset: ‘Ask about their story and about their thoughts and feelings, the restorative approach needs to be part of the conversation from the start.’

All interviewees have noticed that in fact adults can learn a lot from children what comes to restorative justice.

‘Cases with adults can be very complicated, they become principled and don’t want to give in at all. With children it’s different. They are more open, also to take responsibility,’ says Helerin.

‘It is easier for children and adolescents to grasp the concept of restorative justice and its benefits compared to adults. The children are always keen to participate, to take initiative, to learn things,’ acknowledges Panagiota.

‘Once they understand how they can benefit from these methods and how it can affect their lives in a positive matter they are more interested in learning more, they become open to the idea and want to include it in their work and life as well,’ adds Cristiana.

‘Young people are very forgiving; they seem to be able to put things behind them more easily. They often hug each other after the agreement made at the end of the mediation,’ says Annemieke.

‘In addition, children have different needs and priorities compared to adults. In civil mediation cases for example, adults often require a solution that can be easily valued in financial terms, whereas for children this is not always important even in cases where property damage has occurred, such as the theft of a mobile phone,’ acknowledges Panagiota.

‘In conclusion, while in essence children don’t have the maturity of adults, they are more flexible and open to trying new things, more adaptable and eager to try new methods, especially if these new methods propose solutions to make them feel better and have their best interests at heart. Thus, many times working with kids in Restorative Justice is actually more productive and efficient in the long term,’ acknowledges Cristiana.

The i-RESTORE 2.0 project is ongoing and the partners will meet in person again on May 23rd in Athens, Greece. The occasion is the second regional advocacy event hosted by the Greek partners of the i-Restore 2.0 project, targeting policy makers and professionals from the field of restorative justice and children’s rights. A final conference is scheduled for September 2nd 2024 in Brussels to discuss and share ultimate outcomes.

More information on the project can be found on the i-Restore 2.0 webpage.

‘Many children report that participating in an Advisory Board, was the first time they felt that their views were taken into account, they are heard, and the content was actually shaped by the children themselves,’ explains Panagiota.

‘In fact when working with children, as opposed to adults you need to adapt your speech and style so that they can be comfortable and for them to better understand the subjects you speak about,’ explains Cristiana.

Panagiota agrees, ‘Some parents have the tendency to be overprotective of their child and deny any and all allegations. Given that in restorative justice the offender must take responsibility for their actions, it is difficult to overcome this tendency of the parents.’

Cristiana agrees, ‘Times are changing at a fast paced rhythm and things that were usually done in the past are not that efficient or productive anymore and you have a generational gap that sometimes it is very difficult to work with.’

Heidi Jokinen is a University lecturer at Åbo Akademi university (Finland).

She is from Finland, where she is still today based in. She currently teaches theological ethics and philosophy of religion at Åbo Akademi University, so it makes a nice mixture of both teaching and research. She wrote her PhD on victim-offender mediation more than a decade ago now and have had an interest in restorative justice ever since. She is a member of the EFRJ Newsletter Editorial Committee since five years ago.

Contact: heidiheidijokinen@gmail.com

Sofia Vasileiadou is a Criminologist expert witness.

She comes from Greece and she is currently working there as a criminologist expert witness in legal cases. She is motivated by the vital role that a testimony can play in a court, helping to ensure a fair judicial outcome through evidence-based knowledge. She was first introduced to the principles of restorative justice during her masters and have been fascinated by the way restorative processes are able to restore safety and security, repair harm and alleviate suffering through dialogue and agreement.

Contact: ssvasileiadou@gmail.com

Kim Magiera is a Mediator in penal matters, as well as a Lecturer at the University of Hamburg and a Researcher at Ulm University Medical Center.

She works at the Clinic for Child & Adolescent Psychiatry/Psychotherapy in Ulm, Germany. The main focus of the research she is involved in, is child maltreatment and neglect. It is a heavy topic and she is touched by it, but this is also what drives her motivation: she hopes that with the knowledge we gather and projects we implement, we can have a positive impact on children’s and families’ lives. And also raise awareness amongst professionals from different fields of work.

Contact: Kim.Magiera@uniklinik-ulm.de