Call for Abstracts - RJC 4th Annual Conference
Online: Microsoft Teams
Over the past two years we have all experienced unprecedented challenges, but we have also witnessed many examples of communities coming together to provide support, heal and rebuild. Despite this, we are still living in troubled times. We are increasingly seeing cases of interpersonal violence within our communities and find ourselves in times where war, conflict and organised violence are becoming more commonplace. Class, gender, generational, religious, race, political and social polarisation continue to leave our communities divided and disconnected and the notion of a ‘just society’ all the more out of reach.
This is why, during this year’s conference we want to explore the potential for restorative justice and practices as an approach to building resilience within our communities. Thus, the theme of the 4th annual RJC conference is ‘Living in Troubled Times - Restorative approaches to building resilience’
This year, our conference sessions will focus on one of four areas:
- Restorative responses to interpersonal violence
- Restorative responses to war, organised violence and societal conflict
- Building community resilience in troubled times
- Restorative practice and social justice
We are particularly interested to explore how restorative approaches are being used in cases of interpersonal violence. Whether this be violence against women, hate crime specifically racialised, homophobic, transgender and xenophobic incidents, and the rise in knife crime. We ask: how can restorative practice be visualised and developed in cases of interpersonal violence?
War, conflict and premeditated acts of violence continue to dominate our news. Whether this be the uncertainty of the war in the Ukraine, the reports of war crimes inflicted on Ukrainian communities, the threat, and actual acts of violence instigated by organised gangs, the exploitation of young people through county lines crimes, acts of terrorism both home and abroad and societal conflict between communities across the United Kingdom. We ask, how are/can we respond restoratively to war, conflict and acts of violence?
We ask how can we create restorative communities? How do our institutions, including our secure estate, schools, social care providers, health services and religious communities become restorative spaces? How does a community become a space for developing strong and effective restorative relationships?
Finally, in a world where class, gender, generational, religious, race, political and social polarisation continue to leave communities divided and disconnected we want to understand how we can align restorative practice within the social justice movement. We ask, how can restorative practices contribute to developing a just society?
Abstracts can be submitted for consideration in one of the following four session types that will run during the course of the two-day conference:
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Session type |
Information |
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Paper |
Abstracts submitted for this type of session will involve individual papers on experiences, practices and/or research findings.
Presenters will be allocated to one of the parallel sessions which run for 90 minutes. Each presenter will be given around 20 minutes for their presentation followed by 10 minutes for questions.
The RJC selection committee will combine papers of a similar theme into one parallel session. |
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Panel |
Abstracts submitted for this type of session will involve a group of individuals proposing up to a maximum of four papers on a specific topic to be presented in one parallel session. The purpose is to provide a platform for the advancement of experiences, research and/or practice on a particular area of restorative justice/practice.
Panel presentations will be allocated to one of the parallel sessions which run for 90 minutes. Each panel presenter will be given 15/20 minutes for their part of the presentation. This will be followed by 30/20 minutes for questions. Actual timings will depend on the number of presenters. |
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Skills workshop |
Abstracts submitted for this type of session will involve participants with hands-on experience delivering and sharing skills/practices with attendees. Sessions must include practical exercises to learn specific practices or experience specific situations.
Presenters will be allocated to one of the parallel sessions which run for 90 minutes. Break out rooms will be available and a member of the RJC team will be available for technical support throughout. |
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Poster presentation |
Poster presentations give an overview of an area of research or practice that is visually presented on a single sheet.
The poster sessions will run for 90 minutes. Each presenter will be given a maximum of 10 minutes to explain their poster and answer delegate questions. Times may vary depending on the number of submissions.
Posters displayed at the conference will be collated into a single RJC publication which will be shared with delegates after the event. |
You can contribute to the programme of speakers by completing this online form with an abstract of no more than 500 words, and indicating for which session type(s) you would like your work to be considered. All abstracts must be submitted in English.
The deadline for the call for abstracts is the 23rd Sept 2022.
All submitted abstracts will be reviewed by our communications committee and a decision will be communicated to applicants by the 30th September 2022.
Where abstracts are accepted, the title, names and contact details of the presenters will be included in the final programme of the event. Please note that all presenters must be registered and have paid for the conference in order to be listed in the conference programme.
For further information please email enquiries@restorativejustice.org.uk and a member of the team will get back to you.