Talking Piece Podcast

Mark Finnis is the director of L30 relational systems and an Independent Thinking associate and one of the UK's leading exponents of restorative practice. With many years experience working with schools, local government agencies and social services, he is in great demand as a speaker and trainer, helping organisations adopt restorative practices in a way that is practical and achievable. We caught up with Mark to find out how he first got interested in restorative practice and how that has developed over the years.

The last episode of season 2 finds us in conversation with Stuart Douglas and Beverly Brown who work on NI Alternatives programme, Aspire. Aspire seeks to work specifically with young men in Northern Ireland in a restorative manner. You will hear from Stuart and Beverly how this works and some of the impact their work has had, you will also hear from a beneficiary of the programme and how working with the staff has impacted their life. This episode is released as part of Restorative Justice Week. www.alternativesrj.co.uk

Episode 18 of the Talking Piece podcast focusses on mental health. Greater Shankill Alternatives has been providing access to a technique called havening that aims to help people deal with trauma's they have faced and work towards reducing the impact of anxiety that comes through them. We hear from 3 participants all with very different issues they have faced and they talk with our resident therapist Emmett about their experience with havening. Each one had a very different thought process about this but they all experienced positive results from their sessions with Emmet. We are glad to be able to share these stories with you and we want to say a massive thank you to Emmet and the three participants for sharing their stories. It is our hope that if someone listens to these and needs help that they feel inspired and encouraged to reach out and get the support they need. If you live in any of our office areas then please get in touch with us and we will help in any way that we can. All of our office sites contact details are on our website www.alternativesrj.co.uk Or please reach out to us via our facebook pages Alternatives RJ

Episode 8 of Season 2 finds us in conversation with Stephen and Alan from the STARS programme - Talking about the impact of restorative practice training and application of restorative skills and thats transforming individuals and their connection within their communities. It's great to hear stories like Alan's and how learning about restorative practice and putting it into practice has had an impact on his life and on the programme he runs, Sea Change. Join us on the next episode when we look at other ways we have been supporting people within our communities at Northern Ireland Alternatives where restorative practice isn't just a way of doing things, its a way of life.

Episode 7 finds us in conversation with Billy Drummond and other partners in the BUILD (Better Understanding in Local Development)Project. Looking at some of the development issues faced by the Greater Shankill community and how this project seeks to address them.

Episode 6 finds us in conversation with STARs workers, Jonny Armstrong and Stephen Hollywood, talking about the work of the STARS project, the impact that it is having on participants and how participants are living out restorative values in their personal lives and within the wider community.

This episode finds us in conversation with our friends at Longmont Community Justice Partnership, talking about their documentary "How to love your enemy", We are joined by Kathleen McGoey, Dan Sidders and Matt Battalgia talking about the reason behind the documentary and the success RJ has been in their community and specifically the relationship LCJP has with local police. The documentary can be found here: https://freethepeople.org/how-to-love-your-enemy-a-restorative-justice-story/ Here is what Free the People say about it on their website: Longmont is a city in Colorado that tries a different kind of justice system, powerful enough to transform a broken system of mass incarceration in the United States. Instead of locking up non-violent offenders, these advocates focus on the challenging but rewarding process of individual responsibility, forgiveness, and redemption that radically shifts our idea of justice and our part in it. Free the People created this original documentary film and it was the winner of Best Feature and Best Director at Front Range Film Festival and was selected at numerous other film festivals across the country, then postponed due to COVID-19. Free the People is releasing the full film ahead of schedule to join the conversation happening about police violence and racial disparities in our justice system in the United States. “How To Love Your Enemy” is an emotionally compelling story about real people working to make things right, and a tutorial for other communities looking to restore faith in their justice systems and law enforcement. Co-directed by Sam Martin and Matt Battaglia.

To celebrate restorative justice week we are releasing a special episode of the podcast that finds us in conversation with James Simon the CEO of Restorative Justice Council UK. James has a long history of implementing restorative practices within schools and shares how he was introduced to restorative practice, and the story of that first implementation in school he was head teacher at. He then goes on to share about how he became involved with the RJC. Check out our Twitter and Facebook feeds for more posts duet restorative justice week.

Episode 3 is a live broadcast that was facilitated via Streamyard and broadcast live to our YouTube channel to celebrate Good Relations week in Northern Ireland. Featuring the LINCS programme facilitated by NI Alternatives and a programme from one of our partner organisations CRJI, namely their Travellers, as well as our jointly delivered new restorative practice project STARS. We talk about the importance of good relations work and the role that restorative practices have to play in facilitating it.

Episode 2 of our new season finds us in conversation with Howard Zehr. Howard is one of the pioneers of the restorative justice movement and his books Changing Lenses and the Little Book of Restorative Justice are well known and required reading across the field. We caught up with Howard during lockdown to have this conversation via Zoom. His wealth of experience and insight was an absolute privilege to listen to, and we hope you enjoy the episode just as much as we did in having the conversation with Howard.