Three more organisations achieve the RSQM
The RJC is pleased to announce that three more services have achieved the Restorative Service Quality Mark (RSQM). County Durham Youth Offending Service's (YOS) Restorative Work, Wales Restorative Approaches Partnership and the Restorative Justice Team from Hampshire Youth Offending Team have all recently completed the application process and now hold the RSQM.
The RSQM is a badge of quality that demonstrates that a service provides safe, high quality restorative practice which meets the six Restorative Service Standards. These organisations join other RSQM awardees – in sectors ranging from criminal justice through education to care – who can hold up the RSQM to encourage public confidence in the quality of their restorative work.
Keith Appleton, the Team Manager at the County Durham YOS, said: “The RSQM endorsement is a significant achievement that clearly demonstrates the high quality restorative work that our team delivers to victims, young people and the residents of County Durham.
“The self-assessment process, when building our portfolio, was an excellent tool to identify good working practice and areas for development. It also stimulated considerable debate with delivery professionals, partners and management regarding what a quality restorative service should look like.”
The chief executive of Wales Restorative Approaches Partnership (WRAP), Julia Houlston-Clark, said: “[working towards the RSQM] was a really good process to breathe and check around alignment with RJC best practice guidelines and standards.”
On hearing that WRAP had achieved the RSQM, Julia said: “This is definitely cause for celebration! As a relatively new organisation, with the stresses of setting up our growing infrastructure, it has confirmed to us that we still maintained our core aims and standards through the highs and lows of development.”
Lynn Barham, the Team Manager at the Hampshire YOT, said: “We have worked hard to develop our services and ensure that we are meeting the needs of the victims of the offences committed by our children and young people in order that they can be assured of the quality of our work.
“This is a credit to the hard work of the staff. Working towards securing the RSQM has also given us the opportunity to evaluate what we currently do and gather the robust evidence that demonstrates our quality of service, as well as the chance to look at how we may build on this and develop further going forward.”