Two more youth justice services achieve the RSQM

node leader
18 June 2015

The RJC is pleased to announce that two more youth justice services have achieved the Restorative Service Quality Mark (RSQM). Gateshead Youth Offending Team Restorative Justice Service and the Restorative Justice Team at Essex Youth Offending Service have become the latest services to attain the RSQM.

The award demonstrates that services are delivering good quality, safe and sustainable restorative services that meet the six Restorative Service Standards. 20 organisations – from sectors that include criminal justice, education and care – have now achieved the RSQM.

Jodie Fenemer, restorative justice worker in the Restorative Justice Team at Essex Youth Offending Service, said: “We applied for the RSQM as we feel very passionate about victims and young people receiving high quality, safe restorative justice. Working toward the quality mark was labour intensive but the process of gathering the evidence gave us an opportunity to review the good practice within our service. We found this encouraging and motivating.

“Receiving the email saying that we had received the RSQM was amazing. It meant that all our hard work was not in vain, and knowing that the RJC had recognised our practice as ‘consistently safe and of a high quality’ was brilliant.”

Debbie Cooper, team manager of Gateshead Youth Offending Team Restorative Justice Service, said: “Without standards we would not have been able to undertake regular audits and reviews of our service, and we would have been unable to benchmark our work from a baseline of ‘good enough’ to what we believe is now ‘very good practice’. The Restorative Service Standards have proved invaluable to us when developing individual staff alongside systemic service change.

“Achieving the RSQM is recognition of the work we deliver and provides us with an opportunity to celebrate the progress the service has made. It also gives staff and volunteers much deserved recognition for the innovative practice which is now consistently delivered within the organisation.”

To organisations considering applying for the RSQM, Debbie said: “If you have confidence in the restorative services you deliver, you believe you can allow participants the opportunity to turn a negative experience into a positive one and if you can safely support, help and advise your staff and volunteers to continuously improve practice, then go for it.”