About You
Phil Cawley
After serving for 30 years with the Lancashire Constabulary as a police officer, on retirement in October 2011, I joined the forces newly established RJ team. From a position where officers and PCSOs were delivering for mainly low-level offences, I arranged for the team to be trained to deliver RJ and now the force uses it for a much wider range of criminal offences, including those classed as serious and complex.
Similar to most providers, up until around 2016, the force did not use RJ for cases involving sexual or domestic violence. After listening to two presentations were rape victims recounted their experience of RJ, I obtained agreement from force senior management to consider RJ for such offences. Since this time, we have used RJ interventions for many such offences.
In 2016 I successfully sought extra funding from the PCC and the team was expanded and I became the force RJ manager. As my role developed, the force started to run its own RJ training and as the force lead for RJ training I have run many 3-day RJ training course for internal staff and volunteers and also for other agencies and institutions including YOTs, HM Prisons’, care homes, housing providers and the University of Central Lancashire. As a result of my collaborations, the Lancashire Constabulary is virtually the sole provider of RJ in Lancashire.
In 2017, I led for the force on meeting the requirements for the RSQM which we subsequently achieved and later in my lead trainer role, helped achieve the TPQM.
After a further brief retirement, I returned as the force’s RJ promotional lead and my role is now to promote RJ across Lancashire Police and other agencies and partners. This requires me to train and give familiarisation inputs across the county to a wide variety of audiences including other agencies, educational establishments and universities.
As well as promoting RJ I have an extensive case load and am currently progressing cases involving death by dangerous driving, murder, rape, historical sexual abuse and domestic violence. As a result of my extensive experience of dealing with these cases, the RJ manager has selected me to lead on the case supervision of serious and complex cases and I hold regular meetings with the other members of the team to supervise their cases.
I am currently part way through a PhD at LJMU researching convicted male sex offenders and RJ.
What I wish to achieve as a trustee
The delivery of RJ over the last 9 years has given me the most rewarding and full-filling period of employment since I left college in 1979. It is a privilege to facilitate powerful and emotional conferences where victims and offenders benefit from this meeting.
However, it is true to say though, that the provision and practice of RJ is not consistent across England and Wales and I have heard (from colleagues) and witnessed myself, examples of poor delivery which had the potential to revictimise participants. As a result, I believe that the work the RJC is undertaking to identify and set standards is crucial to the effective and safe delivery of RJ. I believe I can assist in this and not only that, I also want be part of an organisation that not only establishes these standards but also monitors them and shares good practice.
I also believe in the RJCs campaign to better fund RJ provision and make it more readily available across England and Wales. I think it is important that practitioners like myself contribute to the various debates about its use and the best means I can achieve this is through contributing to the RJCs work. I feel that my varied policing background and extensive RJ experience will be of benefit to the RJC and will help contribute to the continued development and use of RJ in the future.
Sarah Cairns
I am a passionate and experienced Restorative Justice practitioner with over 10 years’ experience, all of which has been spent as a volunteer facilitator for my local Restorative Justice provider. During this time, I have facilitated a high number of restorative interventions across a wide variety of settings including both the adult and juvenile secure estate, community dispute resolution, family work, Youth Justice, schools and Children’s Social Care. I specialise in serious and complex casework including homicide, harmful sexual behaviour and domestic abuse. have an Open University BSc in Social Policy and Criminology, City and Guilds Level 4 Diploma in Restorative Justice and have successfully completed training for specialist and complex casework, casework supervision and train the trainer courses. I derive great energy from supervising and mentoring new facilitators to help them to develop their skills to deliver high quality interventions.
Within my paid role I work for a Local Authority Children’s Services where I develop and deliver training to social care practitioners, all of which is focussed upon improving outcomes for vulnerable children through a restorative approach. Most recently I have co-developed a Leadership Programme for staff and provided critical friend oversight of the programme. I also led a successful project on the whole school adoption of a restorative approach in a local school which had high levels of exclusions.
Prior to my work in the Local Authority I provided consultation for a University research project which was developing a scheme that established a restorative justice response for elderly people who were experiencing abuse in their own homes. The aim was to improve the options for those affected who might otherwise not take action as to do so would require involving the police and criminalising a member of their family.
I have also worked for a local charity that supported families who had a family member in prison and was regularly involved with writing bids to secure funding. Additionally, I served as a commissioned officer in the Royal Air Force where I developed excellent organisational and strategic planning skills, financial governance and was used to working under pressure to tight deadlines. It was here that I developed excellent public speaking skills which have led me to be a confident and accomplished trainer and presenter.
What I wish to achieve as a trustee
As a passionate advocate of quality restorative justice interventions, I have seen at first hand the transformative power that this can have on individuals, families, and the wider community. With the breadth of experience, not just at practitioner level that I bring, I believe I have the experience and skills to assist the RJC to continue to develop and broaden the application of restorative practices, to make it accessible for all and to ensure that this work is of a high standard.
My membership and accreditation from the RJC is something which I hold very dear and I am keen to develop the relationship between the membership and the board of trustees by working collaboratively to continue to collectively shape and develop the future direction of the council. The Covid-19 crisis has shown that now more than ever there is a need to broaden the application of restorative practices. I am keen to translate the theory of restorative from words on a page to actions in communities so that where we live, work and learn become spaces where we connect and collectively resolve conflict.
Partnership working is critical in my job and a particular strength for me. As a trustee I would be keen to support the board and utilise the broad range of skills from within the RJC to provide an offer to our membership that grows skills and develops opportunities for the wider availability and application of restorative work.
