Jane lives in Aotearoa and is an Associate Professor, the Diana Unwin Chair in Restorative Justice and Director of Te Ngāpara Centre for Restorative practice at Te Herenga Waka /University of Victoria Wellington, New Zealand.

Her work focuses on all forms of restorative practice, experiences of justice & injustice, and criminal justice reform. Recent publications can be found here.  She is a trained mediator with membership of Resolution Institute and worked briefly as a youth justice conference convenor. 

Thea lives on Darug and Gundungurra country. Thea is a former community lawyer who has worked with people impacted by sexual abuse, child sexual assault and family violence for over 15 years mainly in community legal centres.

Thea is a current member of the NSW Sentencing Council, the Victims Advisory Board and the Corrective Services Ethics Committee. In 2019 Thea was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to investigate victim-oriented restorative justice programs for sexual abuse. Thea has completed restorative practitioner training with the Australian Association of Restorative Justice and advanced facilitation skills for sexual harm, Community Justice Initiatives, Waterloo (Canada).

Anna is a highly experienced solicitor, policy advisor, and mediator and has spent her entire career focused on the prevention of harm to children and adults and the provision of a compassionate and just response to those who have been harmed. Since completing her law degree in 2001, Anna has consistently worked with members of the community who are survivors of either familial or institutional abuse with lived and often life-long experiences of trauma. Anna has consistently adopted a trauma informed and survivor led approach in her professional work.

Since 2005, Anna has worked in administrative law as a senior solicitor and policy advisor on three governmental inquiries in relation to institutional abuse, two of which have been Royal Commissions (Australia and Aotearoa, New Zealand) together with the Murphy Inquiry (Dublin, Ireland). Anna has also held national executive roles in relation to safeguarding and responding to those harmed in institutional contexts.

Within these roles Anna has had to continuously navigate complex professional relationships and dynamics to affect the necessary cultural and institutional change to improve the environments in which both children and adults are cared for. Prior to 2005 Anna worked as a solicitor (gaining qualifications as an independent children’s representative) with Legal Aid NSW in relation to family law and care & protection which involved working with and advocating for both adults and children who had been abused or experienced intense familial conflict.

The development and implementation of education and training frameworks in organisational contexts has been vital and key components in each of Anna’s senior advisory safeguarding and professional standards roles. Anna has developed a keen commitment and capacity to engage sensitively, compassionately, and effectively with others in a diverse range of environments necessary to ensure meaningful education and institutional reform.

Anna lives and works on Dharawal country.

Kate lives on Yuin country. Kate is an accredited restorative justice facilitator, mediator (NMAS/Resolution Institute) and a conflict resolution coach (CINERGY).

Kate has been working in the conflict transformation field since 2005, including ten years as Director, Restorative Justice in the NSW Department of Communities & Justice.

Kate is currently the Principal Consultant of a small business, contributing to the resolution of conflict and disputes across a range of settings and providing supervision and practice development workshops to support best practice restorative justice.

Kate has been on the Commonwealth’s Restorative Engagement Facilitator Panel since 2017. Kate is also on the Facilitator Panel for addressing historical institutional sexual abuse and is an Expert Panel member for Transforming Justice Australia.

Kate is committed to restorative principles and values and facilitating dialogues to transform and restore institutional, workplace and human relations.

Jared lives on Palawa country. For almost 10 years Jared worked for the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency (NAAJA) in Darwin as a senior criminal lawyer and Manager, Law and Justice Projects. In 2012, he received a Churchill Fellowship to consider culturally strengthening initiatives in Canada, New Zealand and the United States that could reduce the negative impacts of the justice system on Aboriginal people and in 2016, Jared was awarded a 2016 NT Human Rights Award in the youth category.

Jared completed mediation training in 2010 and has been a nationally accredited mediator since July 2010. Jared’s background is in community mediation, as well as Aboriginal mediation, peacemaking and restorative processes and the intersection between traditional and contemporary mediation and peacemaking processes.

Jared is also an experienced restorative justice facilitator, mainly working with young people in the youth justice system. In 2018, Jared helped establish and oversee a court-referred youth conferencing program in the Northern Territory.

Jared is a graduate of the four-year Mawul Rom cross cultural mediation program and completed a Master of Indigenous Knowledges (Mawul Rom) through Charles Darwin University. Jared is currently a PhD student through the Faculty of Law, University of Technology Sydney, exploring Aboriginal peacemaking processes in North East Arnhem Land, and their potential to decolonise the criminal justice system.

Jared is passionate about expanding the reach of mediation and restorative justice, and in particular creating fairer justice processes that privilege the extraordinary expertise and perspectives of First Nations peoples.

Justine lives and works on Larrakia country and has been working in peace building work and conflict transformation for more than 30 years. As a mediator, conflict coach, facilitator, conflict management advisor, restorative justice practitioner, trainer and coach, she has managed conflict in over 5000 disputes in a wide variety of settings, including workplace, family, community, commercial, cross cultural and multi-party disputes.

Justine has a particular interest in working with people to build on existing peacemaking practices and to co-design culturally appropriate and effective peace, conflict and mediation training. She has extensive experience designing and delivering accredited mediation training both nationally and internationally.

She believes passionately in the power of mediation to build peace with justice.

Mardi lives on Bundjalung country and works for a service that delivers Men's Behaviour Change Programs (MBCP) where she support and advocates for women and children impacted by men's use of domestic abuse/violence. Mardi facilitates groups for adult victim-survivors that focus on support, validation, and psycho-education.

Mardi also coordinates a national online pilot MBCP that is being evaluated by Monash University and No To Violence. Mardi's PhD research focused on sexual violence, particularly socio-culturally normalised sexual coercion, and the way that storying such experiences can be a source of validation and healing for victim-survivors.

Mardi authored a journal article on men’s use of normalised sexual coercion which was published in The Journal of Sex Research. Mardi co-hosts feminist podcast Sex and Consent.

Melissa lives on Dharawal country. Melissa is a Social Worker with over 30 years experience as a counsellor, program manager, group facilitator, training provider and consultant. Throughout her career Melissa’s passion has been working alongside individuals, families and organisations responding to interpersonal violence including sexual abuse and harmful sexual behaviours. Most recently, Melissa was the Clinical Coordinator of a service working with young people who have engaged in harmful sexual behaviours. Melissa is currently an Accredited Victims Services Counsellor, a Research Associate at the University of Wollongong, a lecturer and provides training, supervision and consultation to service providers.

Melissa is committed to working in ways that promote the dignity, rights, safety, knowledge and diversity of the people she works with. She is skilled at facilitating restorative conversations in ways that are trauma informed, survivor led, respectful, creative and just. Melissa approaches this work through a social justice and feminist lens and draws on tools from Narrative Therapy and Response Based Practice.

Melissa has a deep interest in the transformative nature of shared stories and is continually inspired by people’s capacity for safety, accountability, social change and healing.

Sarah is a practitioner, trainer, supervisor and community organiser in the space of interpersonal harm. Sarah began working with survivors of sexual assault in 2003 and since then has worked as a counsellor, group-worker, project worker and through community accountability processes to respond to survivors' needs for healing and justice. Sarah delivers Australia-wide training in understanding and responding to complex trauma.

Sarah also works with men who use violence through Men’s Behaviour Change programs and provides specialist training, supervision and consultancy to the men’s domestic and family violence interventions sector. Sarah is passionate about addressing power and responding to harm transformatively.

Sarah has a BA (Hons) in Psychology and Gender, a Master of Social Work, a Master of Public Health, a Graduate Certificate in Men’s Domestic and Family Violence Interventions, and qualifications in Restorative Practice and Family Group Conferencing.