Repairing Communities
Case Study
Wales Restorative Approaches Partnership were asked to facilitate a restorative process regarding a community dispute. Our Function Leader for Practice, Tammi, took the lead and met with all parties involved, which was 11 people all together. Tammi firstly met each participant separately, some on multiple occasions, to listen to each person’s story, see if they wanted to be involved and then prepare them for the face to face meeting. Throughout preparation, Tammi asked each person the same questions which were:
“What’s happened?”
“What were you thinking at the time and how were you feeling?”
“Who else has been affected and how?”
“What do you need?”
“What do you want to happen to move forward?”
In this case, there were multiple issues to address from family disputes to neighbourhood problems regarding volunteering groups. Due to this, it was agreed that the meeting would focus solely upon the volunteering group's dispute and the family matter would be addressed at another point. During the meeting, Tammi asked each person the same questions again and allowed for constructive conversation between participants. On one occasion, one participant needed to take a break due to the intense emotions they felt but later resumed the meeting. By the end, most participants had agreed to find a way forward, which in this case was amicable separation of groups and respectful interactions in the future. Since the meeting there has been no recurrent problems and all parties are happier.
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