Could restorative approaches help us to avoid furthering polarisation in our campaigning?

The Mint House and the Sheila McKechnie Foundation are partnering to host this event to explore restorative approaches and how they could be relevant in campaigning.

Katie Roberts will highlight some of the challenges those in campaigning are currently facing around polarisation. Pete Wallis will share some key themes from restorative practice that might be helpful, such as listening with curiosity, understanding harms and needs, and working together to find solutions. We will also hear the personal experience of Becks Sutton who has used listening exchanges to facilitate dialogue on the Oxford Low Traffic Neighbourhood (LTN) issue.

The event will be interactive and include time for discussion in breakout rooms to think about where these types of approaches are already happening, the positives and challenges of restorative approaches, and what this might look like in practice in future work.

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This online event will be held on Zoom. You can register on Eventbrite, with variable ticket prices available. Please pay as you are able so that we have the resources to continue to hold these types of events:

£10 (e.g. employed professional/government/academic/large organisation)

£5 (e.g. employed by a small charity)

Free (e.g. student/volunteer/don’t have the resources to pay for a ticket)

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Katie Roberts has over twenty years delivering community engagement programmes for social change across a range of social and environmental justice organisations. Her early career was spent working with grassroots organisations across the UK and overseas. Katie spent five years as Projects Director at Trees for Cities before many years spent in campaigning, fundraising, policy, and strategy and development at Christian Aid. Since 2022 Katie has been working as a consultant specialising in leadership, strategy and organisational development and working alongside organisations through periods of change and challenge. She is currently Interim CEO of the Sheila McKechnie Foundation.

Pete Wallis has just retired after working for 25 years as a restorative justice practitioner with Oxfordshire’s Youth Justice Service. A senior practitioner and trainer, Pete has written widely on restorative justice, including Understanding Restorative Justice and The Pocket Guide to Restorative Justice.

Becks Sutton is a mediator and former British diplomat experienced in working with stakeholders in a variety of settings and cultures. Recently she has been involved in developing an innovative ‘Listening Exchanges’ approach for use in polarised communities, which she used to facilitate dialogue in Oxford around the Low Traffic Neighbourhood (LTN) issue.