Highlights from Previous Years
2023 Margaret Thorsborne, A Relational Lens and Response to Bullying
Margaret Thorsborne, OAM, is a restorative practice consultant with a background in education and counseling. She was a pioneer of and played an important role in the introduction of Restorative Practice into schools in Australia and New Zealand in the mid-late 90’s, and the UK in the early 2000’s and has since trained conference facilitators and schools in education, community, police and justice sectors across Australia, Asia, New Zealand, Britain, USA and Canada. She remains involved in this important reform in schools, particularly around whole school implementation, including the issue of readiness for culture change.
She is currently consultant to various state and national government bodies and agencies in Australia, New Zealand, USA and the United Kingdom and has an office in London. She is a recognized expert author and trainer in the field of RP in schools and workplaces.
Margaret has continued to widen the use of restorative measures by applying the principles and philosophy of conferencing and restorative justice in workplaces in private and public sectors to rebuild relationships in the wake of a wide range of difficulties, including workplace bullying and high level conflict. She has most recently been involved in assisting in the development of a whole-of-city restorative approach in Whanganui, New Zealand.
She is board member and Chair of Restorative Practice International, an associate member of Restorative Practices Aotearoa (NZ), Fellow of the Australian Institute of Management, member of Australian Association of Restorative Justice, and the Silvan Tomkins Institute in Philadelphia. Her Order of Australia Medal is in recognition of her service to education.
2023 Dr. Kathy Evans, Relational Pedagogy; RP as our Way of Being in our Classrooms!
Katherine Evans is an Associate Professor of Education at Easter Mennonite University where she teaches courses in education theory, differentiated instruction, and restorative justice in education (RIE). She is particularly interested in school and classroom climates, school discipline, and the ways in which educators participate in creating more just and equitable educational opportunities for all students, including those with disability labels and those who are marginalised for a variety of reasons, including race, ethnicity, language, economics, sexual orientation, or gender identity.
Evans holds a PH.D. in Education Psychology and Research from The University of Tennessee where her dissertation employed phenomenological interviews with middle school students about their experiences with in-school suspension. While at EMU, she has worked to develop EMU's graduate program in RJE (http://www.emu.edu/maed/restorative-justice/) and has collaborated with teacher education facility to embed restorative justice throughout the EMU teacher preparation program. Evans is the co-author of The Little Book of Restorative Justice in Education and has published articles and book chapters related to zero tolerance policies, restorative justice, and school discipline practices.
2022 Dr Belinda Hopkins - What have we learned about relationships from the pandemic and what's needed now?
Dr Belinda Hopkins is the Director of Transforming Conflict. She pioneered the application of restorative principles in school settings in the UK in the late 1990's and created the first training course in restorative skills developed specifically by teachers.
Belinda is one of the most published authors in the world, in the field of restorative approaches both in schools and care. Her pioneering books 'Just Schools' (JKP 2004), 'Just Care' (JKP 2009), and 'The Restorative Classroom' (Optimus 2011) are internationally acclaimed.
Belinda is the current Chair of the European Forum for Restorative Justice working group for schools, of which Michelle Stowe is also a member. Belinda is considered an RP Elder in this field and works with and advises RP advocates all over the world.
Below we share a short snippet of Dr Belinda's presentation to us from this years conference along with her resource on Empathy Circles available to download.
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