COMPREHENSIVE APPROACH TO HEALING BUILT WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF PROFESSIONALS AND VICTIMS / SURVIVORS

Therapy and Counselling is freely available to all impacted by abuse, in all Spiritan institutions, from any counsellor of your choice for as long as deemed beneficial by your counsellor.  Therapy/counselling is confidential, provided by independent professionals and funded completely by the Spiritans. Counsellors must be certified but can be based anywhere in the world and can be met in person or online.

Restore Together have developed relationships with two established providers and who understand and support the group’s work:

Towards Healing: https://towardshealing.ie/ email: info@towardshealing.ie, Freephone: 1800 303416 (Rep of Ireland) Freephone: 0800 0963315 (Northern Ireland and UK)

One in Four: https://www.oneinfour.ie/ email: info@oneinfour.ie, Phone: 01 66 24070

Please contact these organisations directly for free, confidential support.  They provide counselling services face to face or by phone or Zoom/Teams etc. Their therapy options include Psychotherapy, Family Support, Group Counselling based on collaboration, Responsive Therapy and Evidence informed practice.

To arrange for your certified professional to be paid, contact Tim Chapman. Tim's email is timchapman@rjteam.net

Feedback from those who have availed of this service is that it is extremely helpful and confidential.

Restorative Justice (RJ) is an approach to justice that aims to repair the harm done to victims. In doing so, practitioners work to ensure that offenders take responsibility for their actions, to understand the harm they have caused, to give them an opportunity to redeem themselves, and to discourage them from causing further harm. For victims, the goal is to give them an active role in the process, and to reduce feelings of anxiety and powerlessness. The process can involved therapy, or returning to the school to tell their story to someone of authority so that they are finally heard and believed ,or having an apology given to them, or joining in a circles group, or hear of our efforts with the Spiritans to develop a Redress scheme.

RJ is victim centered, and focuses on delivering personal healing at an holistic level and at a pace that suits the victim.   

Redress is but an acknowledgement of wrongdoing and a contribution towards setting right what was wrong. It is a lynch pin of RJ. Restore Together have already agreed the form of a suitable payment with the Spiritians. There is an opportunity for the Spiritians to lead this topic by delivering compensation to their victims by pushing ahead with the delivery of its Redress programme. The Spiritians should not be allowed to delay this element of RJ, because other groups are delaying or behind the curve.

Testimony Gathering/ Truth-Telling Best-practice deems that justice for all those impacted by abuse requires an opportunity to fully tell their histories, be listened to, recorded for posterity and believed.

Memorialisation Restore Together has had initial discussions with a view to discussing the establishment of a joint working group between victim/survivors and other stakeholders, including Blackrock College and Willow Park School, to explore appropriate Memorialisation of the abuse in the schools and the effect on victims.

Victim/Survivors feel this is extremely important to help encourage people to understand, discuss and debate abuse in its many forms. We must create an environment which encourages witnesses and victims to speak up, to ensure it doesn’t happen again and to help reclaim the campus for those who were abused. Blackrock College has recently indicated a preference that this be explored in conjunction with the Blackrock College Union. Restore Together is currently engaging with the Union to advance this relationship and continues to work with the College and other stakeholders.