Restorative Foundations
Empowering people to build relationships to both prevent and respond to harm.
"All humans are hardwired to connect. Just as we need food, shelter and clothing, human beings also need strong and meaningful relationships to thrive. Restorative practice is an emerging social science that studies how to strengthen relationships between individuals as well as social connections within communities." International Institute for Restorative Practices
About Restorative Foundations
Restorative Foundations is passionate about using restorative approaches within an organisational level to better collaboratively build capacity for preventing and responding to harm. Director of Restorative Foundations, Catriona Harwood, is a social worker and restorative practitioner with a background in innovation and implementation science. She has specialised within a mental health space, and believes restorative approaches can enhance any setting. Whether in workplaces, community organisations, educational settings, or in the family home, restorative approaches are all about relationships.
With over two decades of experience across mental health, community development, disability, the youth and restorative justice space, Catriona has a passion for creating space for voices which aligns with their social work values of self-determination and empowerment. Catriona enjoys the challenge of implementing and embedding restorative approaches and thrives in a collaborative environment. Catriona is passionate about maximising staff wellbeing to optimise service delivery to community.
Catriona loves to help teams and leadership to recognise their restorative potential to build better connections, and to see the gains from that. Restorative Foundations regularly collaborates with restorative practitioners locally, nationally and internationally to build capacity and enhance learning opportunities.
Membership and Affiliations:
Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW)
Restorative Justice Council (UK)
Restorative Practice International
Palliative Care Social Work Network
Resolution Institute
Education and Achievement
Graduate Certificate Health Science (Healthcare Innovation) Queensland University of Technology 2023
Project Management Fundamentals - AIM 2022
Restorative Foundations & Restorative Responses micro-credentials Victoria University of Wellington 2022
Metro North Collaborative for Allied Health Research, Learning and Innovation (CAHRLI) winner 2021
Mediator (level 2) Dispute Resolution Branch 2018 onwards
Youth Justice Convener (including Sexual Offences) 2017
Master Social Work Studies (UQ) 2016
Restorative Foundations acknowledges the traditional owners on the land in which we live and work and recognises that sovereignty was never ceded. We recognise the First Nations peacekeeping practice wisdom that permeates restorative approaches, and we strive to support health equity by better supporting voices of those most impacted by our systems.
Our Services
Services are tailored to context and organisational need and may involve support regarding:
Restorative leadership and enhancing a restorative space
Enhancing wellbeing by providing a more restorative approach to teamwork
Responding to workplace complaints, conflict and/or incidents of harm to enhance safety
Building capacity in teams to enable more effective listen, feedback and enhance a learning environment
Setting boundaries and supporting colleagues following incident or issues
Improving processes to resolve conflict and complaints
Our services may involve one or more of the following elements to better build your restorative capability:
Restorative Introduction and Readiness Assessments
Supporting a better understanding of context and participant readiness prior to implementing change can be of huge benefit to support and empower a collaborative approach, and to better understand any barriers and enablers prior to utilising valuable resources.
Understanding and exploring team and organisational culture can encourage a collaborative starting point to support change. This can be done by meeting teams to introduce basic restorative concepts, then using our restorative readiness surveys, and/or focus groups to measure your team's context.
Restorative Foundations use evidence - based context assessments and tools to better support sustainability of change, as well as helping your organisation better understand your starting point.
Restorative workshop facilitation and capacity building
Restorative Foundations can facilitate workshops to better understand the restorative framework and build restorative capacity, including exploring impacts of harm within the setting. This includes practical application of tools and strategies to support a more restorative space to both prevent and respond to conflict.
Workshops can range from introductory (2 hours) to more in-depth (2 days), and can be tailored to fit organisational need.
Our workshops utilise restorative circles to build connection and encourage practical application of restorative tools. Circles are versatile and can be used to develop relationships and build a sense of community in response to incidents, conflicts and problems. Circles give people an opportunity to speak and listen to one another in an atmosphere of safety, decorum and equality.
Consulting and/or Mentoring support
We provide coaching, mentoring and planning advice and assistance within your organisation to continue quality improvement efforts.
Wherever you are on your restorative pathway, we can support you to better build the restorative capacity of individuals, teams and organisations to understand how to manage conflict, to build trust, and create a safer workplace.
Building and changing culture can take time and we can be there to support your journey wherever you are beginning.
Restorative Foundations has had the privilege of working alongside Human Resources, Team Leaders, Executive teams, all levels of staffing in workplace settings, as well as with families in justice settings.
Restorative Meeting Facilitation and Mediation
With mediation accreditation, in addition to restorative facilitation skills, we can support your team following conflict or harm, whether facilitating meetings between a group or between individuals.
This can include extensive preparation and exploratory work to assess suitability for potential face to face restorative meetings, or circle work to support repair, or shuttle communication (non-face to face), if more appropriate.
Where possible this includes collaborative work using current organisational supports to encourage sustainable and agreeable outcomes.
Social Work support (including groupwork)
Providing psycho social assessment using a relational lens to address personal difficulties or structural barriers.
Can work with individual, groups or communities in provision of support e.g. counselling, advocacy, community development, with special interest areas including (but not limited to) restorative approaches, acceptance commitment therapy, healing from harm, palliative care, heart failure/chronic disease
Facilitation of "buried in treasure workshops" to support those who have collected "too much stuff".
Facilitation of Kintsugi (restorative pottery) workshop, inspired by the ancient Japanese art of Kintsugi ("beautiful brokenness"), and designed by UK restorative facilitators in Mental Health (Drennan and Swanepoel)
Wander Weekend Coordination
Coordinating, facilitating and supporting connection to nature using a restorative approach.
Wander weekends (in their 6th year), intend to create a connection, space for reflection, and exploration of the natural world. Whilst location and schedule are changeable (generally Qld or northern NSW), main elements (all optional) include:
shared accommodation alongside a National park
connection to country, and/or cultural activity to acknowledge and appreciate the land in which we are on
circle format to explore values, expectation setting and safety
shared gift/food experience, with expectations on participants to make the experience shared
hike activity (generally 20km, with optional shorter)
mind and body activity (e.g. yoga, sound bath, breathwork)
creative activity
Take the first step to a more restorative space
If you are seeking conflict resolution, or a more harmonious workspace that empowers voice and is a safe space to learn, then get in touch to discuss opportunities.