Restorative Justice for All (RJ4All) is an international Institute with a mission to advance community cohesion and redistribute power within society at the local, national and international levels. We do this by using the values and practices of restorative justice including: power sharing, fairness, equality, dignity and respect. RJ4All is the leading Europe-wide restorative justice network with members from over 40 countries.
We achieve our charitable aims by:
• Providing internships to young people and marginalised groups as well as high quality volunteering opportunities involving social action
• Bringing harmed parties together through restorative justice to negotiate solutions and restore.
• Carrying out educational projects and information campaigns in the interest of communities, victims and marginalised groups at the local, national and international levels.
• Increasing public awareness of restorative justice, human rights and inter-cultural dialogue.
• Carrying out evaluations and research on restorative justice, criminal justice, human rights and equality programmes, building a stronger evidence base for further development.
• Building bridges between communities and the powerful as well as victims, offenders, practitioners, policy makers and researchers.
• Increasing knowledge and pushing the boundaries of restorative justice especially in contested areas of practice (e.g. domestic violence, sexual abuse and hate crimes).
• Making restorative justice more accessible to victims, offenders, junior researchers, students, practitioners, policy makers, the public and the media.
• Influence international, regional and local policy, legislation and practice.
• Providing expert, tailored and independent advice on restorative justice, human rights, equality and criminal justice.
The RJ4All Institute is governed by a Board of 4 non-executive directors with expertise from user service delivery, front-line work, campaigning, academia and research (https://www.rj4all.info/our-team) The Institute is run by its Founder and Director, Professor.
Dr. Theo Gavrielides, an international expert in user-led research methods, and youth policy. He has been the coordinator of over 20 Erasmus projects and works closely with the Youth Partnership of the CoE and the EU (see https://www.theogavrielides.com/bio). The Director is supported by an operations’ team of international experts (https://www.rj4all.info/RJ4all-team). The Institute hosts at least 3 part-time interns on a weekly basis and engages at least 150 volunteers annually. RJ4All has received the Quality Label from the European Solidarity Corps and works in close collaboration with EURODESK UK. All our interns are supported through accredited online and face-to-face trainingthat we tailor to their needs and projects. We are also supported by an independent Academic and Editorial Board and an International Advisory Board. Their membership includes some of the most prominent academics, researchers and practitioners in the areas that we cover. Within this Board there is an Ethics Committee that reviews Ethics Applications when vulnerable individuals are involved in our work. As a membership organization, RJ4All has over 2000 registered individuals and organisations from across the UK, Europe and overseas. We communicate with our members on a bi-monthly basis via e-newsletters and blogs that are written by them and the RJ4All core team.
Working for more than 10 years in the area of equality, community cohesion, youth and justice, we have developed numerous strong partnerships with civil society, statutory and non-statutory organizations, locally, nationally and internationally. Acting as a national and European network, we share expertise and best practice among our users, partners and networks. Evidence-driven practice is important to RJ4All and thus it has in place efficient and elaborate internal as well as external quality control systems. Putting emphasis on the quality of our services, we are dedicated to measuring the impact of our work on our users and the wider society. Exploiting the Theory of Change and using user-led evaluation methods, we produce high quality evidence-based outcomes that allow us to review our work and improve our approaches. RJ4All also runs an independent, publishing arm. RJ4All Publications is an impactful publisher specialising in social sciences and the publication of cutting-edge research. We have published books on youth and justice, hate crime, human rights, gender equality, domestic violence and many more. RJ4All Publications is also the publisher of the leading international, peer reviewed Internet Journal of Restorative Justice (IJRJ).
RJ4All is relatively new to Erasmus but its Director has managed over 20 Erasmus and EC funded projects for other organisations. This is a unique opportunity for RJ4All to lead on an Erasmus bid and also learn from its experienced partners.