SURVIVORS VOICES
We are one of two national hubs in Scotland assigned to develop and deliver Restorative Justice services. Our part in this project is dedicated to provide services suitable for individuals who have experienced complex and sexual harm. This builds upon the focus within our organisation to support survivors in their journey to recovery. It is an imperative part of our work that we weave survivors' voices through the fabric of our organisation. As such, through taking on this project we carried out the ‘Survivors’ voices’ consultation to gather survivors' views on RJ.
The consultation was carried between February- April 2021, exploring three central aims. This was to assess the awareness, demand and need for Restorative Justice amongst survivors of domestic abuse and sexual violence. We found that there was a relatively good awareness of RJ, a very clear demand for the availability of its services, with strong emphasis on a need for choice and accessibility. This then echoed the need for these services.
These findings were extremely informative for the work that we went on to produce and set our foundation to build upon. We have been dedicated to using RJ in a way that fills in the gaps and supports survivors where they have lacked significant support from other agencies and organisations. As a result of this consultation we set out to develop a new groundbreaking service; the harm after harm service which addresses a huge gap within justice and healing. This service focuses on supporting survivors in their processing and recovery from secondary harm experiences with organisations using a surrogate model.
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