Foresee.hu

Workplace mediation process

Sat, 18 Nov 2023 22:12:00 +0100

This is a real mediated case from our praxis in which parties are played by colleagues. The mediation is an uncut 1hour40 minutes long recording in which you can watch each stage and a lot of techniques that the mediators (Borbala Fellegi, Andras Winkler-Virag) use. This is a fully improvised process, there was no script available.

You can watch the video here.

21 minutes Podcast of Borbala Fellegi about her article on her theory about the so-called 'reconciliiation' and 'distancing' spirals based on her article "Bruising and Healing: The dynamics of resolving grievances (2021)"

Sat, 18 Nov 2023 22:13:00 +0100

In this conversation Claire de Mézerville López invited Borbala Fellegi to discuss her Presidential Paper, Bruising and healing: The dynamics of resolving grievances (2021), where Dr. Fellegi explains the reconciliation spiral and distancing spiral involved in the mediation process of dealing with conflict and reintegration at the community, interpersonal, and criminal level. We shed light on indicators of distance and the indicators of distance reduction between people that lead to healing and reconciliation. Dr. Fellegi illustrates the power of acknowledgement and acceptance in situations where there is resistance to finding solutions, ultimately recognizing and valuing all participants humanity and lived experience. (Source: https://podtail.com/podcast/restorative-works/borbala-fellegi-ph-d-speaks-with-claire-de-mezervi/)

Foresee is taking part in the EU-funded IMPROVE project to support victims of domestic violence

Mon, 10 Apr 2023 22:14:00 +0200

Project Impacts of the IMPROVE project

Impact 1: Increase domestic violence reporting and improve access to domestic violence services for under-served, marginalised victims, by providing a novel entry point to existing frontline responder networks by means of an effective conversational AI Chatbot.
Impact 2: Accelerate domestic violence policy implementation using a validated common approach for frontline responder organisations and policy makers to reinforce and exploit existing solutions and enablers, while removing barriers to change and overcoming organisational inertia.
Impact 3: Improve multi-agency domestic violence responses for underserved populations by fostering the capacity building of frontline practitioners through scalable, low-threshold, targeted training, raising mutual understanding and bridging sectoral divides.
Impact 4: Raise awareness among, and empower, underserved European populations to access existing domestic violence services while increasing frontline responder organisations’ and policymakers’ knowledge and awareness of underserved populations’ needs.

The poject's short awareness raising video about partnership violence is available from here.

For more information about the IMPROVE project, see:

www.improve-horizon.eu

info@improve-horizon.eu

Article published and freely downloadable about the dynamics of resolving grievances

Thu, 30 Jun 2022 20:06:00 +0200

The parties concerned can talk about the injuries suffered or can avoid each other; they can get closer to or further away from each other. This article features models of a Reconciliation Spiral and a Distancing Spiral that identify a range of points in each process that can help us understand the dynamics that can drive movement toward one or the other. The models are supported by established research in the field, the author’s education in criminological and psychological research, and her experience in conflict resolution projects and cases working in mediation/conflict management in Hungary. Stressing that the models she offers are not prescriptive, but rather descriptive of the general shape and flow of the processes of reconciliation and separation that she has witnessed, the author helps to identify key places where specific responses and actions can support creating dialogue for reconciliation.

The article can be downloaded from here (in pdf format):

https://www.iirp.edu/images/pdf/Bruising_and_Healing_The_Dynamics_of_Resolving_Grievances1.pdf

Article of Borbala Fellegi about the possible role of dialogue in resolving grievances is now available and freely downloadable

Thu, 30 Jun 2022 20:24:00 +0200

This article features models of a Reconciliation Spiral and a Distancing Spiral that identify a range of points in each process that can help us understand the dynamics that can drive movement toward one or the other. The models are supported by established research in the field, the author’s education in criminological and psychological research, and her experience in conflict resolution projects and cases working in mediation/conflict management in Hungary. Stressing that the models she offers are not prescriptive, but rather descriptive of the general shape and flow of the processes of reconciliation and separation that she has witnessed, the author helps to identify key places where specific responses and actions can support creating dialogue for reconciliation.

Hungary - Fatal incidents raising attention to striking problems of the frontline response to high-impact domestic violence

Wed, 10 Jun 2020 16:52:00 +0200

According to the statistics, in Hungary on an average three women are killed by their partners in a month. Since the IMPRODOVA research has started (May 2018), several fatal domestic violence (DV) incidents have been reported by the media, which shed light to the dysfunctional institutional answers to violence and illustrated individual examples to those problems that the research has identified. On average in 2019, 33 DV cases were reported per month in the country. The majority of domestic homicide cases (which were also covered by the media) had antecedents, but these previous crimes were not accompanied by an effective frontline response to prevent the occurrence of further violence. In December 2019 an ex-detainee, who has been on parole for two month and previously sentenced for a homicide attempt against his wife, killed two of his children and himself on a parental visit. The case had a great echo in the system and was followed by monitoring examinations of the frontline response procedure ordered by the government and by the Commissioner for Fundamental Rights.

If we check further fatal cases that happened in the last 12 months and got publicity in the media, we see that all cases have been preceded by violent actions before the homicide against a partner or against children. Physical or emotional violence was present in these relationships. A few examples from the list of DV-homicides: In September 2019, a woman in her twenties was seriously assaulted by her partner and later died of her injuries. The parents of the woman admitted that the woman was afraid of her partner who previously already assaulted her physically and threatened her with killing. In October 2019, a woman was beaten up for death by her partner. The fatal event was preceded by regular physical assaults from the partner. In some cases, the man had hit her so extremely that the woman could not come out of the house for days. Another case that has happened under the COVID -19 lockdown was a homicide of an old man killed by his son, who suffered from psychiatric problems and has been previously sentenced for a serious assault against is parents for a two-year long prison sentence suspended for three years in 2018. He committed the homicide during the operational period. Despite of the antecedents, the family was not provided by any social or psychological aid that could have predicted the risk and prevented the death of the father.
These cases emphasize the long-lasting, burning problems characterizing the frontline response handling high-impact domestic violence in Hungary. Serious shortcomings of the DV-related legislation, legal practice and social services form the background of the fact that several cases end up in serious physical injuries or deaths that could have been prevented. In the following, I will report some findings to capture the most striking problems that have been identified as part of the IMPRODOVA research in Hungary.

Problems regarding the legal framework and legal practices of domestic violence as a crime
The most crucial shortcoming of the legislative framework is that it is upon the victim's request to file a criminal complaint if the DV does not include serious physical injuries. The police has to act ex officio only if the violent criminal offense is an aggravated battery (Section 164 (3))1. Regularity is a premise to recognize DV as a crime. In case of no previous criminal records, it is oftentimes very difficult to prove regularity, especially in case of psychological or emotional violence. The collection of reliable evidence is hindered by several circumstances, including the strict and rigid regulations of medical reporting and the lack of accessible information publicly available for women about the conditions of getting a medical report in time. Although in most of the cases where a DV complaint is filed, the police investigates. Nevertheless, due to the lack of sufficient evidence most cases do not result in a criminal charge. A further problem is that the prosecution evaluates evidence freely, which results in a lack of unified adjudication and judgment practices. „What would be enough for a charge in one county would not be enough in another" - as a representative of a county police department described in the research. Thereby, if other crimes had been also committed, the police often investigates in different crime categories instead of DV, such as simple or aggravated battery - to enhance the chances of a criminal charge. Even if there is a charge, sentences are rarely proportionate to the violent actions and to the impacts of violence, which intensifies the risk of further, more severe violent perpetration.

Inefficient risk assessment as a source of fatal incidents
Lack of formalized, unified risk assessment protocols in detecting and protecting DV victims by the police, social services and medical professions put a disproportionate weight on individual expertise and personal attitudes of the responding services. Current risk assessment practices are accidental and usually insufficient. Risk assessment procedures usually do not consider the history and wider context of violence, only the actual violent crime. Hence, sometimes situations of high risk are neglected, keeping the victims in the spiral of violence, raising the chance of further, more violent crimes. Social and Child Welfare Services do not have a unified protocol regarding the detection of DV victims and the assessment of victimhood-related risks, neither a protocol on the measures as reactions to certain types of violence. Practitioners whom we interviewed in the research, reported that risk assessment measures vary countrywide on a large scale depending on the individual competencies and attitudes of the responding service. A shelter-director illustrated inappropriate risk-assessment and inefficient sentencing with a shocking example of a case, where a child was killed which was the result of the improper legal framework and systemic answer: A mother was accepted in the shelter with three children. Due to the legal status after a divorce, the fourth child stayed with the father. The mother reported to the shelter that the fourth child is in danger - the father would beat him up on a regular base. The police initiated an investigation to the signal of the shelter, but the medical reports could not prove without a doubt that the injuries were caused by a physical assault. Nevertheless, based on the decision of the Guardianship Office the child was replaced to a Children's Home of the Child Protection Service. The police was not convinced based on the evidence available to file an ex officio complaint against the father. Finally, the mother filed a complaint against him, but the evidence was not enough for a charge by the prosecution. Since there was no charge against the father, he was allowed to see the child regularly during home visits of the child. On one of those visits, the father killed the child. A further aspect behind the lack of signalling, mentioned by several social service representatives, is fear. The lack of efficient risk assessment and disproportionate sanctions resulted in a few cases where social workers were seriously harmed by DV perpetrators. Protocols do not provide protection for the frontline responders of DV, which is a significant deterrent factor from reporting. This is extremely problematic in small rural communities where it is not possible to keep anonymity, and where the social status of violent perpetrators hinders all community members – including the social professionals – to report violence.

Sanctions without social measures
As a reaction to the outstanding numbers of fatal domestic violent incidents last year, the government proposed a law amendment that intends to exclude the possibility of parole in case of intentional domestic violent offences against life. The proposed law was accompanied by protests of human rights defenders who argued that the prohibition of parole as a single restrictive measure is very contra-productive and does not serve the needs of the victims. NGO's and experts raised their voice for the revision of the complete legal framework, legal practice and institutional answers to high impact domestic violence accompanied by missing work in prisons countering violence, enhancing rehabilitation and restoration. Meanwhile the Hungarian parliament – ignoring civil society pressure – has adopted a declaration rejecting the ratification of the Istanbul convention previously signed by Hungary. With this step the governmental majority expressed the approach of not accepting international binding rules to combat violence against women, but fighting violence in unique, highly politicized ways.

1 Act C of 2012 on the Criminal Code, Section 164 (3).

The article was originally published on:
https://www.improdova.eu/blog/detail.php?we_objectID=184

A prison-focused radicalisation prevention study by Foresee researcher, Gábor Héra is published

Mon, 09 Jul 2018 19:29:00 +0200

The strengthening of radicalization and extremism is a new international trend. Its prevention, the development and harmonization of relevant capabilities is in the interest of international and national communities. The so called „vulnerable” groups of societies, in particular persons with criminal record and imprisoned persons are especially susceptible to radicalization and constitute a relatively easy target group from the perspective of recruitment by extreme organizations.

Increase of radicalisation1 and extremism poses a new security challenge in Hungary, too. The extent and nature of this challenge, however, differs significantly from that faced by countries in Western Europe. Accordingly, the challenge of capacity building in terms of professional training to enhance prevention in Hungary is distinct from Western Europe. In spite of the different nature of threats and the lower level of risk posed by extremism in Hungary compared with Western Europe, the focus on prevention and skill development which took place in the framework of the project, as described in the present report, remains indispensable and has extraordinary importance.

The initiative titled “Prevention of radicalization in the prison-system” focused on a yet relatively unknown field, i.e. on improving the preventive skills of the staff working in Hungarian penal institutions. Exploring challenges related to radicalisation and identifying needs and demands arising in prevention and treatment were among the aims of the project.

The project was implemented by the Foundation for the International Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities. Within the framework of the project that was supported by the European Union’s Internal Security Fund, we firstly assessed the skills that could be observed regarding the detection, prevention, and treatment of radicalization among the professional staff in five penal institutions. In the second stage, we provided training customized to local needs for the sake of developing these skills further. In the third stage, we conducted interviews known as “life story interviews” among the convicts on the assumption that coming to know the personal life stories can pave the way to a better understanding of the reasons behind radicalization. At the end of each of the three sections, observations are presented in the form of analyses.

All in all, we not only aimed at collecting information about radicalisation and extremism by research activities. Additionally, efforts were taken to improve skills required to recognise and prevent radicalisation through training activities also supporting and accelerating the reaction of staff. This experimental training and collection of information is extremely significant not only for the existing staff with meaningful professional know-how and experiences but also in terms of the planned increase and training of personnel by thousands of staff in the Hungarian Prison Service.

The present summary study provides an overview of the entire project, summarizes its main results and formulates recommendations. The results have been presented in the international conference organized in Budapest, 26 June, 2018.

The Summary Study can be downloaded here.

Restorative Justice Award 2018 received by the Foresee Research Group

Mon, 02 Jul 2018 18:10:00 +0200

Source: Laura Mirskly, IIRP eFORUM June 2018

The Foresee team are researchers and scientists who are also practitioners, trainers and activists. Their work across Hungary and Europe shows "an amazing high level of competence and quality," added Törzs.

When Fellegi founded Foresee In 2008, she brought together gifted professionals in social work, mediation, law and sociology to solve society's most pressing issues. These include school exclusion, criminality, victim trauma, and offender rehabilitation and reintegration. With the four "Cs": conflict, communication, cohesion and community, "we can 'Foresee' a better future," states Fellegi. She has dedicated 10 years to empowering people to tell their life histories, helping them talk through and heal their trauma and bridge differences.

This may be especially crucial in Fellegi's home county of Hungary. "We are a nation that has suffered serious trauma in the last centuries," she observes. "There is suppressed shame going back generations, and urgent need to help people talk and reflect."

This need informs Foresee's work with SOS Children's Villages for orphaned and abandoned children. The project has guided young people to address conflict in a more conscious way and develop life skills.

One teenaged Roma girl had been at SOS since she was an infant. Her behavior was violent and hostile. Being enabled to share her life history of parental neglect, her feelings of shame and self-regret helped her realize that her hostile behavior was hurting herself more than anyone else. Like other SOS children empowered to tell their stories, the girl learned to be more conscious and wise about her decisions. But Fellegi insists, "We learn as much from them as they learn from us."

"We need to ask, then shut up and listen," she asserts. "Children will recognize their own weaknesses and areas for development and make commitments. As adults we need to love, pay attention to what they are saying, and stop preaching to them."

A project to prevent radicalization among prison inmates sought to identify signs and avert processes that lead to it. Research in five Hungarian prisons showed that "radicalization is a process at the end of a scale of escalated conflict and hidden tensions," Fellegi explains. The Foresee team conducted "life-path" interviews with inmates to facilitate their rehabilitation and reintegration. "The only way to deradicalize is with a reconciliation process," Fellegi maintains. "It's the only way inmates might be able to understand the way out of criminality or hatred."

A four-year project brought restorative approaches to intercultural communities where Roma and non-Roma coexist. Fellegi was thrilled when village residents who had been trained "to talk and confront honestly and not swallow their different views" deeply absorbed what they had learned and spread it to surrounding communities.

Other projects have included a two-year initiative introducing peacemaking circles to address criminal, civil and community issues in European countries "with legal systems that are more rigid than those in the U.S .or the U.K.," reports Fellegi. From that project came Foresee's Peacemaking Circle Handbook.

On a macro level, Foresee projects address the current threat to democracy in Hungary and beyond, as well as the harm that results from people's inability to communicate.

Fellegi's mission and vision is to "give people courage to express how they feel and what they think. Then, we can sit down with each other, even with our disagreements." Her hopeful conclusion: "Each conversation, from one-on-one to society-level, can have its impact, and that can impact others."

Watch a video of Fellegi speaking about her work with Foresee Research Group.

New research project on hate crimes and restorative justice

Thu, 31 May 2018 15:44:00 +0200

Borbala Fellegi, Foresee researcher feels privilege to be part of one of ELTE's Lendület Research Groups led by Dr. Petra Bárd. This research program is financed by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. The name and title: SPECTRA – Social Prerequisites for the Effective Fight Against Bias-Motivated Crimes Through Criminal Law and Minority Rights Protection. This 5 year long interdisciplinary research project will do an international comparative analysis of hate crime regulations in the 28 European Member States, including a focus on the applicability of restorative justice in such crimes, and more generally, regarding the broader social dynamics leading to hate crimes.

Radicalisation-prevention in the prison context

Mon, 14 May 2018 19:32:00 +0200

Programme

The „Prevention of radicalization in the prison-system” is a 13-month initiative of the Budapest Centre for Mass Atrocities Prevention in collaboration with Hungarian experts and researchers. Funded by the Internal Security Fund of the European Union, it aims at contributing to the coordination and improvement of national and international capabilities of preventing and countering radicalization. To that end, it maps the capabilities of Hungarian prisons to recognize signs of radicalization, as well as to manage and prevent processes leading to radicalization. It provides trainings for prison personnel to further improve such capabilities and conducts so-called “life-path” interviews with prisoners to facilitate their rehabilitation and reintegration. The results of the project and its policy recommendations will be summarized in a report in Hungarian and English and presented at a conference in spring, 2018.

Context

Radicalization and extremism is increasingly prominent on the security agenda. It is of high priority for national and international stakeholders to improve relevant capabilities and coordinate efforts for preventing these negative trends.
Vulnerable social groups, in particular those with criminal records, are especially susceptible to radicalization and recruitment by extremist organizations. To prevent such negative trends, it is imperative to identify, monitor and evaluate risks on a continuous basis, engage with potentially vulnerable people in an adequate manner, facilitate the rehabilitation and reintegration of prisoners into society and design exit options from extremist movements for those that have already been recruited.
Radicalization and extremism is a new security challenge in Hungary. Therefore, the preparedness of prison personnel to respond to such challenges and the precise needs in terms of capability development are yet to be adequately explored. Although for successful preventive efforts it is imperative to identify and evaluate current needs, it is also important to develop innovative capabilities that can effectively deal with new challenges and to test the utility and efficacy of relevant training activities. By doing so, improvements in preventive capabilities can be accelerated and expanded.

Objectives and methodology

The main objective of the project is to improve and develop the capabilities of Hungarian prison personnel to prevent radicalization.
To that end, local needs and challenges will be explored through focus group interviews with prison personnel, the results of which will be presented at an international conference. Based on this acquired national and international experience, trainings will be designed for prison personnel. The 2+1-day-long trainings will enable the prison personnel to strengthen their capabilities for preventing radicalization. Through “life-path” interviews prisoners will have the opportunity to tell their life stories that contribute to the rehabilitation and reintegration of a wider range of prisoners. The results of the project will be summarized in a study in English and Hungarian and presented at a conference for national and international experts.

Source: http://www.genocideprevention.eu/projects/prisonproject/

Conflict resolution and restorative practices on our journey to the adult life

Mon, 14 May 2018 19:43:00 +0200

Working together with the SOS Children's Villages Foundation Hungary our project's title is "Supporting disadvantaged young people's entry into the adult life" (funded by EFOP, No.1.2.7-16-2016-00001).
Our training series is provided between May and September 2018 for 14-17 years old young people living in the SOS Village's foster care system.
Our main philosophy is to work in close cooperation with the participating children, finding their own needs and inner motivations and provide interactive training occasions in order to:

- develop their communication skills,
- strengthen their resiliency for the present and for their future adult life,
- develop their constructive and peaceful conflict resolution skills,
- teach the applicability of restorative practices,
- and help them to build realistic and sustainable plans for their future based on their vision.

Our training put community building, interactive and reflective group-learning through playing and experiencing into the focus. Based on these elements we aim at focusing on the already existing strengths and potentials of these children. According to our experiences, this strength-based approach is the one leading to the highest ability of developing their communication and conflict resolution skills.

Strengthening procedural rights in criminal proceedings in cooperation with the Helsinki Committee

Thu, 01 Jun 2017 16:15:00 +0200

The Hungarian Helsinki Committee is a partner in the international project “Strengthening procedural rights in criminal proceedings: effective implementation of the right to a lawyer/legal aid under the Stockholm Programme”, coordinated by the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee.

The project, launched in June 2016 and funded by the European Union, aims to increase understanding of the shortcomings and dysfunctions in each national criminal law framework on the issues addressed by Directive 2013/48/EU on the right of access to a lawyer and Recommendation C(2013) 8179/2 on the right to legal aid among key stakeholders in 5 EU jurisdictions, and to identify and promote examples of transferable good practice. The project also aims to facilitate communication and coordination between legal practitioners and to build and strengthen the capacity of stakeholders on the international and EU standards on the rights to access to a lawyer and legal aid of suspects and accused in criminal proceedings.

Activities include the reviewing of 150 criminal case files per country, conducting interviews with stakeholders, and holding capacity-building workshops for legal professionals.

This project is funded by the European Union.

Joint thinking on forgiveness

Sun, 12 Feb 2017 15:32:00 +0100

Philosophers, researchers of theology, political sciences, literature, historians and criminologists came together to think on the complexities of forgiveness and reconciliation from different angles, sources, and by various methods.

Borbala Fellegi talked about her experiences from the restorative and mediation dialogues she has been facilitated in the recent years focusing on the potentials, dynamics, and also the limitations of forgiveness and reconciliation on micro, mezo and macro levels.

This workshop was a real, unique and innovative way of showing how representatives of different disciplines can come together and focus on one issue, while teaching and learning others about how they see that very similar theme from their different perspective. It was a really refreshing, eye-opening and motivating event for continuing our work towards better understanding the routes to forgiveness and reconciliation!

The programme of the workshop can be downloaded from here.

What makes a dialogue constructive vs destructive? - our recent publication about dialogue processes between victims and offenders

Sat, 04 Feb 2017 20:41:00 +0100

Based on our empirical research on conducted peacemaking circles in criminal cases in Hungary we not only analyse the needs of victims and offenders, but also on parties of any conflict or harmful behaviour.

Qualitative data, content analysis and discussion is on what makes a communication process constructive vs. destructive generally, in tense situations.

The article can be read in English in the Journal of Alkalmazott Pszichológia (Applied Psychology) 16(4) and available from here.

For referencing:

Z. Papp Zs., Fellegi B., Szegő D. (2016), Constructive and destructive dialogues between victims and offenders: Testing the Needs-Based Model of Reconciliation in a restorative justice setting. Alkalmazott Pszichológia (Applied Psychology), 16(4):93–112.

Conference talk on culture and restorative justice by Foresee Research Group at the international conference on „Intercultural Education at Crossroads” in Budapest

Sun, 25 Sep 2016 16:46:00 +0200

The five day event that was organized by the International Association for Intercultural Education and ELTE PPK Centre for Intercultural Psychology and Education attracted more than a hundred educators and researchers from all over the world with the aim to discuss and share research results, best practices and common challenges in the field culture and education. The presentation given by Foresee Research Group on September 8th titled “A universal approach to conflict management? Reflecting on the potentials of restorative justice in multicultural settings” focused on the various aspects culture and restorative justice are intertwined followed by a case study analysis of a restorative session involving hate crime mediated by Foresee RG. The conference session ended with an inspired discussion with the international audience about best practices in multicultural education.

The webpage of the conference can be reached here.

The abstract of the conference talk
A universal approach to conflict management? Reflecting on the potentials of restorative justice in multicultural settings
Zsuzsanna Z. Papp, Borbála Fellegi, dr.

The aim of the presentation is to discuss the potentials of restorative practices in multicultural settings and to present cases exemplifying good practices of implementations. Restorative justice is an alternative conflict resolution approach that reacts on norm-breaking behaviour by fostering dialogue among involved parties with the help of an impartial facilitator. As an introduction, the role of culture in conflict and in relation to restorative methods is discussed. Through examples and a theoretical overview, we examine the range of challenges cultural differences may present in restorative sessions (such as roots of conflicts, communication barriers, diverging goals and priorities). Research and facilitators’ reports (Törzs, 2014) show however that restorative practices serve as an efficient tool also in culturally heterogeneous settings. In the second part of the talk therefore we focus on identifying universal needs in conflicts and common characteristics of restorative justice as a response to those needs (values, principles, methods and communicational norms). Lastly, the potentials of restorative methods in prevention work in schools are discussed. Cases conducted by Foresee Research Group are presented as good examples.

Foresee holds restorative workshop at the international conference on „Intercultural Education at Crossroads” in Budapest

Sun, 25 Sep 2016 15:27:00 +0200

The five day conference with the title „Mobilities, Transitions, Transformations – Intercultural Education at Crossroads” attracted educators and researchers from all over the world with the aim to discuss and share research results, best practices and common challenges in the field culture and education. The interactive workshop held by Foresee Research Group on September 8th aimed to introduce participants to the theory and practice of restorative justice with a special focus on its applications in education. Experts from Germany, Slovakia, The Czech Republic and Hungary took part in the session where a case study analysis and discussions on restorative methods have also taken place in an inspiring atmosphere.

The webpage of the conference can be reached here.

The abstract of the workshop:
Restorative methods in education
Fellegi Borbála, dr., Zsuzsanna Z. Papp

Restorative justice is way of viewing conflicts and human relations in general. It encompasses an approach, a set of principles and practices to address and prevent wrong-doing. In the interactive workshop participants are invited to get familiar with the concept of restorative justice and discuss its potentials in a school environment. Characteristics of restorative questions and dialogues as well as more institutionalized forms of restorative interventions such as circles and conferencing are introduced. With the help of a case study, groupwork and discussions concepts like conflict ownership, engagement, being heard, dialogue, conflict transformation and participatory decision making are discussed.

Preventing radicalisation and the role of restorative justice and story-telling

Tue, 07 Jun 2016 19:23:00 +0200

Source:

http://www.migraciokutato.hu/hu/2016/06/06/preventing-violent-radicalisation/

The Migration Research Institute and the National University of Public Service held a workshop on preventing violent radicalisation.

Mr Péter Tálas, dean of the Faculty of International and European Studies stressed the importance of workshops alike when pointing to the fact how common people have a limited knowledge regarding the roots and effects of the phenomena, being provided with a chance of getting in touch with the topic only through media. The workshop’s moderator Ms Hanga Sántha on behalf of the Migration Research Institute added that it is essential for all of us to understand the processes since radicalization keeps strengthening regardless of the underlying ideologies.

Mr Steven Lenos, a Dutch representative for Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN) expressed his views first in his presentation. He talked about RAN as a network of networks which supports bottom-up methods and lets practitioners and policy-experts work together against radicalisation in Europe. He stressed out the importance of the operative co-operation at an intra-EU level as well as with third countries and added that outcomes shall be shared with external actors as wide as possible. About radicalisation as a phenomenon he said it is a process with possible ways and there is no simple list of indicators for that. The families and communities that are often referred to as hotspots of radicalisation are more like victims of the atrocities around violent acts and according to Mr Lenos these local level communities are the keys to prevent radicalisation. In relation to this he highlighted that schools and educators have important roles in preventing violence as children become citizens and there are values that can be learned through education. Thereupon he drew up the steps which local network may establish through: first one has to identify the convenient level of intervention, likewise the reason of establishment and its contributing actors (taking Western-European samples more informal sublevels, like individuals, teachers, researchers, could be more effective in practice, and efficiency may further developed if the least executive counterparts are preferred). As he said “a network is a living organism which needs to be cured.” There is much that the educational institutions can do against hate speech and spreading intolerance in Hungary: however, external actors, like the police or the government has to leave the space for the schools to give so that they can express how they interpret certain phenomena and what they should do against that (“more option, less order”).

DSC_9947-2

Ms Borbála Fellegi, executive director of Foresee Research Group also emphasized bottom-up methods against radicalisation because their authenticity ensures commitment from the local communities, namely the civil society and the schools. However, she warned, to support their bridging role they need partners of different kind. One shouldn’t keep focusing just onto “deficits” (what the problem is) but rather to “gifts” (what we personally can do) instead. If there is a solid ground where to start from, commitment may overcome compliance. She underlined that hearing the stories and stepping back from preventing personal unfolding seems to be a must for the success. According to her expertise radicalisation is just the tip of the iceberg. Professionals have to work for discovering which is invisible for the first sight. The stories of individuals should be told because those are just as important as global goals. She added if individuals feel self-importance and potential for positive contribution, he or she may join to any initiative.

Mr Áron Somoskövi from the Hungarian Counter Terrorism Centre agreed that it is important to raise local awareness and to maintain the security of the local communities as well as to concentrate on the individuals in the process of radicalisation. However, there is a definite need for early-warning and timely information which both requires awareness raising and extensive cooperation network. Though it is self-evident that the persons themselves should be targeted first and intervention from the law enforcement agencies shall remain ultimate, sometime this latter is unavoidable. He agreed that it is not absolutely necessary to cooperate with the leader of a community, since radicalization is something personal too.

Mr Mihály Kovács from the Hungarian Prison Service explained the situation of Hungarian prisons in connection with violent radicalisation. He said that the ratio of inmates with foreign background in Hungarian prisons is around 4% which is at least 10% lower than in Sweden, France or the UK. Although Hungarian prisons do not keep track of the inmates’ religious beliefs, based on their descent, a little less than 300 convicts may be associated with the Muslim religion. Inmates normally hold together on geographical basis, rather than on a religious one (unlike in the US, no gangs exist). The statistics show that violent radicalisation is not significant in Hungary, but the prisons’ job is to enhance cooperation among respective counterparts (e.g. the Hungarian Islamic Community), to collect and share information within the same circle of professionals, to concentrate on early warning, identification and prevention via studying international practices, as well as to regularly train their staff and to place the inmates correctly. He underlined that there is an existing good cooperation in this regard among several law enforcement and national security agencies (e.g. Counter-Terrorism Office, Constitution Protection Office, National Protection Service, National Police Headquarters and Centre against Organized Crime) in Hungary.

Questions referred to the existing level of cooperation among different counterparts in preventing radicalization in Hungary as well as to good samples in Europe (e.g. Finland, Czech Republic). To accelerate the process of joint thinking, the Migration Research Institute offered to congregate all the professional counterparts working in the field of radicalization prevention in a few weeks for holding a kick-off meeting at an operational level.

European Restorative Justice conference in Leiden, The Netherlands (22-24 June)

Thu, 19 May 2016 12:10:00 +0200

The European Forum for Restorative Justice is organising its biannual conference entitled...

Education for Sentenced Minors & Young Adults

Thu, 03 Nov 2016 14:05:00 +0100

Some partners from the initial project decided to continue their work proposing ESM-YA (sentenced Young Adults too) for 2015/2016 and expanding partnership that integrates complementary missions (probation service, centres for social work, charity NGO for ex-prisoners) so to be able at any time of a path of pain and postsentence to accommodate needs and responses. ESM-YA partners are from public institutions or associated and worked in different European projects whose theme is education in prison mainly addressed to inmates regardless of age. They are located in 8 different countries as EU members: BE, CY, ES, FR, HU, IT, LV and RO, the Spanish one being the coordinating organization as project leader. ESM-YA does not aim to add services to services. It seeks to optimize existing resources and optimize partnerships currently existing. The partnership will work on one hand with justice operators, professionals in mental health, and on the other hand, with prison personnel and professionals from education and social work occurring during the execution of the sentence and after release for a sustainable and secure future reintegration. Initial research in ESM showed that some difficulties were common to all and others (eg. Open prison’s system) are particular to some partners so ESM-YA intends to focus on following items: ➢Promote and reinforce cooperation between the different areas/departments that relate with the development of young offenders (justice, health, education, culture, sport...) ➢ Prevent from recidivism through improved models of intervention strategies and program models (ie. to fight violence in pear-to-pear situation). ➢Facilitate and strengthen social and labour insertion of young offenders.

The implication of the combination “Policymaker / teaching unit / security environment / education” is essential to the sustainability of results while it also shows the willingness of partners to approach the form and content together with the security constraints that are added to the already highly specialized and individualized educational support necessary for the young offenders. With ESM-YA project we will get the chance to extend activities towards the specific problems of young offenders (non behavioural attitudes, mental health, violence,...). Together with the different partner organizations we will create new procedures for new practices. After a period of implementation of these procedures we hope to give adequate recommendations for further situations in regard of Education for Sentenced Minors and Young Adults (ESM-YA).

Presentation of the Hungarian partners: www.euro-cides.eu/ESM-YA/upload/hu.pdf

Website of the project: www.esm-project.euro-cides.eu/news/news.php

Foresee Research Group at Radio Kossuth

Wed, 10 Feb 2016 22:46:00 +0100

This installment of the show featured a specific, Foresee facilitated case from a school as the starting point and had the students and Foresee's executive discussing topics like respect, restorative techniques, mediation, and the role of the community in resolving conflicts. The student-anchors brought examples themselves, which they then discussed from a restorative point of view.

The programme can be reached here.

The werkfilm that was created for the show can be watched on this link.

Budapest hosts Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN) Deradicalisation International Workshop with Foresee’s participation on 2-3 July, 2015.

Mon, 13 Jul 2015 21:30:00 +0200

The event hosted 17 practitioners from Germany, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway, England and Hungary for two days. Foresee Research Group was represented by Zsuzsanna Z. Papp. On the first day of the meeting, practitioners worked on ’RAN Derad Declaration of Good Practice’, a draft document that has been created to sum up the conclusions of the four years of operation of the Derad Working Group and to state the principles and ethos shared by practitioners working in the field. The document gave a good ground for inspirational conversations and exchange of ideas among participants and their views on good practices. On the second day, participants continued to introduce their work and area of expertise to other members in a new way. Presenters were asked to bring case studies from their own practice and participants had the chance to discuss and reflect on them while learning about the organisations and their methods.

Danish Jesper Holme and German Silke Baer gave us insights in the field of youthwork, while Norwegian Andreas Nelson gave a law enforcement perspective on two cases. A talk on how adventure therapy is used in drug addiction rehabilitation was given by Hungarian Tímea Kiss-Lukasik. Ola Saleh, Syrian-Swedish researcher and field practitioner talked about the importance of gender in violent extremism and Swedish Hakan Jarva introduced us to the neuro- and social psychology of cults. Finnish mediator, Miriam Attias talked about their restorative practices in multicultural communities through a fishy case. She was joined by Zsuzsanna Z. Papp, on behalf of Foresee Research Group, to discuss the possibilities of restorative justice practices in the field of deradicalisation. Later on, she also gave insights to the Hungarian local context. The conversations were just as vivid as streets and ruinpubs of the city that participants explored with a bit of guidance of the aforementioned, high-spirited Foresee volunteer.

„The model for gradual social and workforce re-integration and intensive aftercare of inmates”

Sat, 04 Jul 2015 20:02:00 +0200

During the project, 45 inmates and 35 penal institution workers took part in a roughly 2 hour long interview each, and around 500 inmates filled out surveys.

The focusgroup research was carried out in three steps.

The first stage was for project involved professionals, realized with varying numbers of program leaders, penal institute workers, and local coordinators. On top of that, two thematic focus groups were set up focusing on maintaining family relations.

The second stage took place in the special groups of the penal institutes and in the Judicial Observation and Psychiatric Institute. Three groups were set up from professionals working in sanative-educative groups, psychosocial, and drug prevention quarters, while a bigger 10 man group consisted of workers from the Judicial Observation and Psychiatric Institute.

The third focus group research featured professionals and employers who did not participate in the project, but "are closely tied" to the field of reintegration.

The publications about the results will be available on the internet shortly, more information regarding this is still to come.

Foresee's Mediation Modelprogram in the Rákospalota Correctional Institute and Special children Care Home of the Ministry of Human Resources

Sat, 04 Jul 2015 18:51:00 +0200

The Institute is special in the sense that it houses juveniles both in pre-trial detention and in correctional education. As a result, both the everyday relations and the institutional co-existence lead to different conflicts and different solutions in communication. Part of the institute staff has some degree of experience in mediation and restorative techniques, and they have tested these techniques in some form.

The Institute has 2-2 groups of detentionees and youngsters in correctional education, and 3 special childrencare home groups, consisting on average of 8 people per group. The teachers, psychologists, and supervisors working with these children were the participants of the of the half-year-long training programme.

The first step of the programme was about surveying the needs of the participants. A plan was set up taking into account everyone's possible involvment in the programme, the experience of the participants, aiming for the most effective execution of the programme. Focus groups were set up in this phase, and sensitizing trainings have been organized.

During the programme, Foresee's experts held a 3-day intensive course for 18 volunteers from the institutional workers. Apart from the theoretical trainings, the participants had the chance to experience the effectiveness and practical implementation of these techniques first hand through simulated case studies (roleplay, groupwork, etc.). The participants expressed at the feedback circle held at the end of the training that they would like to utilize this approach and these techniques in their family relations as well as their everyday work.

Following the training, the concrete framework of the possible implementation of the technique in the correctional institute has been created, detailing the cases and the methods of implementing them in the process of the correctonal cases. Implementing the restorative techniques led to conflict resolutions in non-correctional cases as well, and improved communication altogether. An important goal was to help the Institute prepare for its responsibility assigned in the new Penal Execution Codex, and to enable the institute workers to make use of the techniques in the future as well.

Throughout the training several workers expressed that they would like to further train themselves as mediators, and institute leaders and teachers asked for mediator help with actual conflict cases on multiple occasions.

The project provided a chance for the institute workers and the juveniles to familiarize themselves with the restorative techniques. The findings of the project provide opportunities not only for those in the institute, but for other child protection and penal institutes, not only in Hungary, but internationally as well.

„Potentials in Peacemaking” – Regional Workshop organised by Foresee Research Group

Sun, 14 Dec 2014 10:47:00 +0100

The aim of the workshop was to present the preliminary findings of the action research applied in Kakucs village as part of the ALTERNATIVE project (Restorative justice in intercultural settings - 2012-2016, Consortium leader: KULeuven - Leuven Institute of Criminology (LINC), receiving funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no. 285368.), and to share and brainstorm with participants from diverse but related areas of expertise and also from different countries like Bulgaria, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Serbia, Romania, Albania, Sweden. The event was very colorful and the participants brought a wide range of experience to the table.

On the first day after the initial round of introductions and greetings the participants were listening to a special radio programme. The show was called Prison Radio and the participants of the conference could send messages to the creators of the show who were within the walls of the Penitentiary and Prison of Vác. Judit Hajdú a leader of the project explained us details about the operation if the radio and their long term plan. After this Gabriella Benedek and Gábor Héra presented the most important sociological and methodological questions of the action research at Kakucs. Than Katrin Kremmel and Dr. Christa Pelikan presented their study that was undertaken in Vienna amongst the so called “Gemeindebau” – social homes, where they were looking to resolve the conflicts between the German and immigrant inhabitants by restorative approach. Both projects were accompanied by a short documentary that made the local problems and specialities more understandable and comprehensible.

The second day started with the IRKS (Institute of the Sociology of Law and Criminology) showcaseing their results in Austria. This was followed by a fish-bowl conversation where – with the help of questions by Dr. Beáta Bodrogi – Dr. Éva Győrfy talked abbot the ALTERNATIVE’s recent progress, the needful changes that were required during the study, the expert lessons and difficulties of the project and the feedback received from the inhabitants of the village Kakucs. This was fallowed by three small group conversation; the brainstorming was a long policy, research and action topics starting from predefined questions with the help of Dóra Szegő and Gábor Héra from Foresee and Katrin Kremmel from IRKS acting as moderators. Amongst others an important topic was the politics around the action research, the consequences and the dangers of the silence braking stories by the local inhabitants participating in the study. How can the researchers handle these continuously raised touchy questions and how can they protect the people who got into this vulnerable situations – even after leaving the place of the research? How is the position of the victim and the perpetrator interchangeable?

The lunch-brake was followed by a synthetising round where the members of the ALTERNATIVE research group summarized the project’s most important outcomes in five minutes in very different perspectives. After this it was time to mutually draw conclusions, discuses the inspirations that the participants gathered during the two day workshop. The conference was ended with the final circle where everyone shared their final thoughts and feelings from the workshop. During the last round Tibor Balogh – a painter was continuously painting in the room. His painting was based upon what he heard and about restorative justice and every participant received a special framed copy of this painting.

For the pictures of the workshop, click here.

For the short video of the workshop, click here.

For the invitation of the workshop, click here.

The report was written by: Judit Czifra and Rita Steinsits

16 minutes film is ready about the future of restorative justice, made by the European Forum for RJ and the Foresee

Sun, 16 Nov 2014 21:12:00 +0100

This video has been created by the Foresee Research group (Hungary) in collaboration with the European Forum for Restorative Justice and funded by the Criminal Justice Programme of the European Union in occasion of the International RJ Week 2014. The interviews has been made during the EFRJ Conference in Belfast (Northern Ireland), June 2014.

A film can be watched from here.

Potentials in peacemaking - Conflict resolution in intercultural contexts in the CEE region

Wed, 03 Sep 2014 23:40:00 +0200

Thinking out Loud about Justice and Security

The conference is organised by the Foresee Research Group in partnership with the Institute for the Sociology of Law and Criminology (IRKS), within the framework of the ALTERNATIVE Project (Restorative justice in intercultural settings - 2012-2016, Consortium leader: KULeuven - Leuven Institute of Criminology (LINC), receiving funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no. 285368)

What is the potential of the restorative approach to conflict resolution in promoting peaceful co-existence in communities known as intercultural contexts in the CEE region?

Under which conditions and in what specific ways may restorative practices (such as mediation, conferencing and peacemaking circles) support communities described as intercultural contex

With whom?

This workshop intends to make a link between 1.) professionals dealing with peaceful conflict resolution techniques (e.g. mediators, restorative practitioners), 2.) stake-holders affected by or responsive to conflicts in intercultural contexts (e.g. policy makers, representatives of municipalities, minority representatives) and 3.) fellows from the research/academic field.

Why?

The aim of the workshop is to present the preliminary findings from Hungary and Austria – the two action sites within the ALTERNATIVE project dealing with conflict-resolution in intercultural communities – and to offer space and time for critical discussion and further input for the research.

What do we attempt?

During these two interactive days we shall think loudly and collectively on the intersections of restorative justice and intercultural settings as well as giving meaning to safety, security, justice, community, exclusion, minorities and participation – that constitute the conceptual fabric of the ALTERNATIVE project.

How?

1. Researchers and practitioners introduce the action research sites and show films from the locations.

2. Presentations on the state of arts and on the preliminary findings, facilitated by an invited opponent expert (in a fish-bowl setting) followed by a concluding round-table of the involved researchers.

3. At certain points participants can reflect and contribute in circle-discussions and thematic workshops. Furthermore, there will be an open space for exhibitions or pitch talks, where each participant can briefly summarise her mission/activities and voice her message.

The language of the workshop is English.

The researchers’ team:

From the Foresee Research Group (Hungary):

László Balla, Gabriella Benedek, dr. Borbála Fellegi, Gábor Héra, Gyula Galyas, dr. Éva Győrfi, Koppány Kelemen, Szilvia Süki-Szíjártó, Dóra Szegő

From the Institute for the Sociology of Law and Criminology, IRKS (Austria):

Katrin Kremmel and dr. Christa Pelikan

How can you register?

Registration for participation is FREE of charge (incl. dinner on Thursday, snack-lunch on Friday and all the coffee breaks

But you need to register online here.

The link to the online registration:

http://survey.foresee.hu/index.php?sid=38826&newtest=Y&lang=en

The number of participants is limited to 35.

Please register online well in advance, since registration is confirmed on a first come, first served basis.

Deadline for registrations: 20 October 2014

Bursaries

You would like to come but have limited budget for travel and accommodation?

You can apply for one of the 10 bursaries to get contribution to the travel and/or accommodation costs.

Application for bursaries is possible online here:

http://survey.foresee.hu/index.php?sid=38826&newtest=Y&lang=en

Deadline for bursary applications: 26 September 2014

Decision is announced before 5 October.

And don’t forget: this is a chance for You disseminating your activities!

We welcome any kind of material that you would like to share with the other participants about your organisation or projects (reports, leaflets, books, posters etc.). For that, an open space will be created on Friday afternoon after the welcome, so bring anything that you think others would be interested in! We’ll also provide space for thought provoking talks in elevator-pitch style (“Summarise and stage your message in 6 minutes”).

For more information, please contact: Dr. Borbala Fellegi (director of the Foresee Research Group) at borbala.fellegi@foresee.hu

Foresee training for professionals of the European Roma Rights Centre

Sun, 10 Aug 2014 19:41:00 +0200

Other than introducing the audiance to restorative justice and alternative dispute resolution, the training's aim was to provide an interactive process in which participants learn through personal experience and reflection about the dynamics and possible implementation of peaceful conflict resolution methods in pursuing the mission of ERRC.

The participants, together with Foresee's professionals examined the possible implementation of restorative justice and mediation in cases of conflicts and injustice involving roma citizens in Eastern and Western Europe alike.

Based on the feedbacks the training was very successful, and revealed, that although they may seem contradicting at first glance, knowing and demanding one's rights have endless connection points with peaceful conflict resolution and peace-making, and that can result in the two processes empowering each other instead of cancelling each other out.

Foresee R. G. is participating in Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN) Deradicalisation Conference, 17-18 July 2014, Sofia, Bulgaria

Sun, 10 Aug 2014 15:52:00 +0200

The conference took place on 17 and 18 July, 2014 in Sofia, Bulgaria involving 25 representatives of Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, Poland, Hungary, Ireland, UK, Germany and Sweden. Foresee Research Group was represented by Zsuzsanna Z. Papp.

The program of the two day meeting involved the following:

-   An introduction to the goals of the RAN DERAD working group initiative.

RAN is set up by the European Commission as an EU wide umbrella network of practitioners and local actors involved in countering violent radicalisation and extremism with the aim of exchanging experiences, knowledge and good practices and to provide information to top level decision makers.

-   Discussion of universal and country specific manifestations of ideological extremism and violent radical behaviours and the challenges it provides.

Political Science expert and former colleague of Political Capital, Kiril Avramov provided insight on the political and historical background of extremism in Bulgaria. In Greece and in Bulgaria the integration of the current immigrant flood was identified as one of the challenges. The need to study the narratives of various conspiracy theories and to monitor the mainstream tendencies in political narratives was also confirmed.

-   Presentation of participating NGO’s work, sharing different methods and perspectives as well as best practices.

Many of the organisations work with young people. Ken McCue of the Irish Sport Against Racism and the Polish Jacek Purski representing the Never Again Association work against racism to promote multicultural understanding through sports, involving soccer players and fans. The Romanian YMCA Dobrich works for the intellectual, cultural and health development of the youth through cultural, education and sport projects. Teachers from Greece in their demo workshop introduced the so-called “Giraffe method” aiming to get immigrant students involved and help children learn non-violent ways to resolve conflicts in a multicultural environment. From Hungary, the work of Foresee Research Group in the field of restorative justice and community conflict resolution was presented and other positive initiatives, such as the Yellow Star Houses initiative and the Holocaust and My Family facebook group initiative to share personal stories of the Holocaust were also mentioned. Bulgaria was represented by government official Gergana Manolova and Andrey Momchilov of the Crime Prevention Fund who talked about their current projects such as the mediator training of police officers. The conference and the workshops were moderated by the chairs of the working group, Harald Weilnböck (Germany) and Robert Örell (Sweden).

The spirit of the conference was symbolized by the excellent location in Sofia in the “heart of tolerance” surrounded by an orthodox and a catholic church as well as a mosque and a synagogue. The spirit of the participants was fuelled by the enthusiasm of the Greek teachers who made us all dance the “Giraffe dance” and the energy was supplied by an abundant Bulgarian dinner with lively discussions over the table.

For more information please check out the RAN websites below.
http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/what-we-do/networks/radicalisation_awareness_network/ran-best-practices/ran-search/ran-search_en.htm#/c_

RAN Collection database

Collection of best practices

Experimenting and experiencing peacemaking circles

Thu, 19 Jun 2014 20:19:00 +0200

Dr. Borbala Fellegi and Erika Magyar presented “Observations in applied pace-making circles model in Hungary” on the 3rd of June 2014. They were talking about the experiences of the two-year-long pilot project - run between 2011-2013 - in which three county’s judicial mediators in collaboration with the experts of Foresee Research Group organized and led off peace-making circles in 18 criminal cases referred to mediation service.
In the second part of the presentation it was possible to go through again an occurred case in the framework of roleplay.
Restorative Justice Committee of Hungarian Society of Criminology organized, ELTE Law Faculty hosted the event.

The audience presented themselves in wide range - lawyers, judges, police officers, probation officers, penitentiary leader, mediators - so complex and comprehensive picture was given of different viewpoints based on the feedback from representatives of various fields. The role-play gave the opportunity to get to know ‘the other side’- mediator in victim’s role or probation officer in offender’s side - so experiencing operating peacemaking circle gave important confirmations and conclusions to the whole group and in the same time to the players personally. Clearly emphasized were the importance of communication, connectedness, unit, trust, cooperation, love and listening. One of the most important conclusions was that the method has important place and role in criminal cases.

Written by Erika Mercz.

Participation in the research of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee

Fri, 03 Jul 2015 00:10:00 +0200

The project’s objective was to examine whether in its present form the Hungarian justice system guarantees the equality before the law of Roma and non-Roma defendants. Based on the criminal case files, the penitentiary documentation, the inmates’ own experience and the penitentiary staffs’ opinion the main question of the research was : whether inmantes experience any difference based on ethnicity? Even though the research focused mainly on Roma defendants, it was also examined whether the defendants’ certain socio-demographic characteristics, including their gender, age or educational background, have any significance regarding the decisions of and within the penitentiary system.

In the framework of the project Dora Szegő, researcher of Foresee Research Group carried out focus-group discussions with the anonymous and voluntary participation of penitentiary staff members in three prisons. Not only discussed concrete decisions made by the personnel, but also asked the participants about their attitudes regarding certain groups of detainees.

As a next step, on 26 March 2014 Helsinki discussed the first draft of the research report at a conference, where the representatives of all stakeholders – including the National Penitentiary Headquarters, the Curia and the National Police Headquarters – had the chance to express their views on the research results and the conclusions.

The final research report, finalised on the basis of the comments made by the participants of the conference and containing also the results of the focus group discussions, is available here in English and in Hungarian.

The project was supported by the Open Society Foundations.

Presentation and situational practice on the Hungarian Academy of Justice

Wed, 26 Mar 2014 23:31:00 +0100

Dr. Tünde Barabás, Head of Department at the national Institute of Criminology held a presentation with the title: “Restorative techniques, realization of victim rights”.

Dr. Borbála Fellegi, a Foresee’s executive facilitated the peacemaking circle together with Zoltán Sitkei, mediator of Justice Service of Hajdú-Bihar County.

The feedbacks were very positive, the judges participating emphasized the importance of responsibility taking, apologizing, and forgiveness and well as the major role of symbolic amends in criminal cases. After the play, the participants were discussing the possible implementation of mediation and peacemaking circle techniques in justice.

Foresee's experts, both as facilitartors and presenters were glad to see the strong will and need on the judges' part for the reconciliation between the two parties. Both the received feedback and the discussions show that the highly important cooperation of judges is something that can be counted upon.

You can read more on the Peacemaking Circle technique here.

Facilitating Peace-making Circles

Wed, 19 Mar 2014 08:44:00 +0100

E.N.T.R.Y., that is founded by the Grundtvig programme, aims to encourage the establishment of international expert networks that are able to draw attention to the problem of violence and oppression. The group members are scientists, expert companies, educational institutes and women’s rights activists.

At the second day of the meeting methodological lectures and case studies were presented to each other by the partners. Borbála Fellegi, who was invited to the meeting as a Hungarian external expert, expounded the method and the practical potential of peace-making circles as a conflict resolution technique. At the afternoon 2 parallel workshops were held. “Dance – reducing stress” workshop led by Argyris Argyrou aimed to make the participants familiar with the relaxant effect of dance.

At the other workshop Borbála gave a brief theoretical introduction of the technique and created a fictional peace-making circle of a conflict in a school. During the role play members of E.N.T.R.Y. could experience the operating principles and effectiveness of the method.

For more information about E.N.T.R.Y. visit their Facebook page. You can find information about peace-making circles here.

Presentation on the "Preventing and Countering Far-right Extremism and Radicalisation: European Cooperation" workshop

Mon, 24 Feb 2014 10:00:00 +0100

The conference, held on the 12th of February 2014, giving place to speeches held by leaders of organizations that work to prevent violence and harm caused by extremist movements, saw more than 20 attendees, with an overseas participant from Canada also attending. Welcome speeches were held by Helena Josefson, representing the Swedish Department of Justice, and Rachel Briggs from UK's Institute for Strategic Dialouge.

The prime subject of the conference was the importance of community policing, the leading role of ministries, the importance of local municipalities, and the work of NGO-s. In connection with the subject, the participants had the opportunity to attend a presentation held by the leader of an organization, who used to run a far-right extremist group himself, but his personal history made him realize the harmfulness of these ideologies, and presently, he works together with his colleagues (whom earlier also were tied to extremist groups), to extract people from extremist movements, who realized that they do not want to go on anymore, and want out. The leader of the Swedish EXIT organization also held a presentation, furthermore, the leader of Life After Hate, a Canadian exit organization, Tony McAleer also told his story, which shed light on many of the factors that make someone receptive and able to leave the world of extremist groups behind.

Dr. Borbála Fellegi talked about the possible implementation of conflict resolution and restorative techniques, the possibility of forgiveness between victim and perpetrator, and the importance of community dialogue using Foresee's experiences a examples.

The agenda of the conference can be downloaded here.

Presentation on COREPOL’s High Profile Workshop

Sun, 26 Jan 2014 17:57:00 +0100

COREPOL uses a comparative design (Germany, Austria, Hungary) to establish whether better police - minority relations can be achieved through means of a Restorative Justice (RJ) approach. The Budapest workshop was held at the Hungarian Judicial Academy.

Gabrilla Benedek held her presentation on Foresee’s ALTERNATIVE project on the first day of the two-day conference. The presentation introduced the consortium and the four action research sites, as well as the main concepts of the research, the Foresee experts involved, but also made mention of Foresee’s objectives, the intercultural context and the main stages of the two-year-long work. A screening of Foresee’s project film was also part of the presentation.

The presentation can be read here.

Presentation at the „A good word in Zugló” workshop

Sun, 08 Dec 2013 11:36:00 +0100

In her presentation, Foresee’s executive introduced the restorative attitude, the main restorative models, and, speaking about the practice she also made mention of their ideal timing and placement, together with the main common items and standards. Proving the efficiency with data from actual researches, she then spoke of the importance of involvement, the quiestions bound to arise in the stakeholders, and the place and role of restorative techniques in the judicial system.

Also part of the presentation was the screening of the Foresee film, „We also exist” in order to show to the audience, through this project, how the peaceful conflict resolution techniques can be applied in the practice.

Based on the feedback received, the participants described the presentation as a positive experience.

Borbála Fellegi and Dóra Szegő: Handbook for Facilitating Peacemaking Circles

Tue, 03 Dec 2013 23:49:00 +0100

The full text of the Handbook can be freely downloaded in pdf format from this link.

This publication is primarily directed to an audience of practitioners who have already become experienced in mediation and/or in other restorative practices and are open to experiment with peacemaking circles in their practice as circle facilitators.

The Handbook first offers an overview on the circle method compared to other restorative practices. The second chapter goes through the circle process step-by-step. The final part of the Handbook presents ten case studies of peacemaking circles carried out within the framework of the project in Hungary, Germany (written by: Beate Ehret) and Belgium (written by Davy Dhondt). Finally, a list of recommended books and articles as well as a useful handout is included related to preparing and conducting circles.

The Handbook was prepared within the framework of an action research project that was conducted between 2011 and 2013 involving Germany, Belgium, and Hungary with the Financial Support from the European Commission’s Criminal Justice Programme 2010 (No. JUST/2010/JPEN/AG/1609).

This project aimed at experimenting with peacemaking circles in these three European countries, which have similar legal roots. Furthermore, the objective was to explore whether this method can be implemented into the European continental legal systems, and if so, how.

The consortium was led by the University of Tübingen (Germany) and by Prof. Dr. Elmar Weitekamp; with partners from the Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium), the Foresee Research Group (Hungary), and the National Institute of Criminology (Hungary).

Within the framework of the project, peacemaking circles were piloted in almost 30 cases (primarily but not exclusively criminal cases). These cases were part of an action research that tested both theoretically and practically the applicability of circles in countries that are all governed by the legality principle and the rule of law. As an outcome of the project the participating countries have prepared a complex research analysis of the circles and the legal and institutional background in the three countries.

As another outcome of this project we prepared this Handbook. The content of this booklet is, on the one hand, based on the training that all the project partners received from the Gatensby brothers who reside in the Yukon (Canada). Phil and Harold Gatensby are two of the pioneers who not only apply circles, but also help practitioners outside of Canada in transferring this Indigenous practice into other cultures and contexts.

On the other hand, this booklet is based on those practical lessons that we have learnt while experimenting with the circle method in our countries. Within the European project we were constantly keeping the restorative principles in mind as the basis of our practice. However, each partner had to make some modifications to the methodology received from the Gatensbys in order to tailor the practice of circles to our cultural, legal and institutional contexts. It should also be emphasised that as part of the action research we had to challenge the existing mediation frameworks while adapting the circle approach into the system. We found that while certain elements of circles are well embedded in the Native American culture, they cannot be necessarily adapted into our European context. (As an example, we can think of the difference between the green nature and the spirit of fire compared to a grey statutory office with artificial lights, led by professional mediators and officials within a bureaucratic criminal justice system).

As can be seen from the above approach, we do believe that the methodology of circles cannot, and should not, be set in stone. Practitioners applying circles are encouraged to be sensitive to the circumstances under which they are working. In other words, everyone should feel free to adapt and try new elements that fit into the normative standards of their people that might effectively serve the main objective of circles, namely to help the flow of honest and respectful communication between people.

This was the philosophy underlying the purpose of this Handbook. We documented everything in order to show how we did our practice ‘as best as we could’. But what you read here is just one of the possible approaches. We encourage all the readers to constantly stay innovative, reflective, and flexible within the contexts they are working in – so that the ‘magic’ could happen in each circle!

„Mediation procedure in the light of the law – criminal phase” training on the Hungarian Judicial Academy

Thu, 21 Nov 2013 19:45:00 +0100

The participants saw presentations about the place of mediation in the legal system, the opportunities of mediation is midemeanor cases as seen by the police and about mediation in traffic offense cases as seen by a prosecutor. The presentations were held by Prof. Katalin Gönczöl, Dr. Ildikó Kincses, Dr. Imre Bertényi and Dr. Mónika Parti Mónika.

Since Foresee’s experts were given the chance to close the training day together with Zoltán Sitkei, a mediator of the Governmental Office of Hajdú-Bihar County, they decided to reach out to the audience in a more informal manner.
An agreement has been reached to start with a case simulation, which then was discussed in detail together with the participants, in smaller groups. Every group familiarized themselves with one of the stakeholders in the mediation, and discussed the stakeholder’s feelings, questions and expectations. Through the reports of the groups, nearly all the questions and feelings arising in a common mediation situation have been collected.

After this, the screening of a short film based on an English case took place and the participants discussed the issues and question that might arise in connection with it.
The day ended with a closing circle where everyone summarized his or her feelings in one word. Together with the numerous positive feedback, even the sceptic opinions agreed on the importance of mediation and its implementation in an ever growing number of cases.

The webiste of the Hungarian Judicial Academy can be reached here.

Foresee presentations on the conference of the European Society of Criminology

Wed, 18 Sep 2013 20:17:00 +0200

The conference, organized on the Law Faculty of ELTE and chaired by Prof. Miklós Lévay and Prof. Katalin Gönczöl, saw three presentations from Foresee’s experts.

Borbála Fellegi and Dóra Szegő in their joint presentation about the Peacemaking Circle Project discussed the findings from research and practice of peacemaking circles implemented in Hungary within the framework of an EU funded action-research project with special attention to the ways in which judges, prosecutors, police and probation officers could be involved into the process of the circles. The general aim of the project was to develop a model of peacemaking circles suitable for a European legal and cultural context.

The ALTERNATIVE project was introduced to the participants by Gabriella Benedek and Borbála Fellegi. This presentation briefly described and interpreted the process and findings of the first phase of the action research in the Hungarian Case Study within the frame of the ongoing ALTERNATIVE project.

The presentation about the now finished MEREPS project that gave an overview of the main supportive and challenging factors that were concluded during this 1 year-long action research was held by Borbála Fellegi. The aim of the Foresee-led consortium in this year-long action research carried out in prisons was to test whether restorative practices could help support victims of crime, raise responsibility-taking in offenders, support the prison staff and inmates in peacefully resolving their internal conflicts, help the restoration of family relations and reintegrate offenders into society after release.

The programme of the opening meeting and plenary session can be read here.

Forsee training at the Summer School Program of European Forum for Restorative Justice in Vienna

Sat, 10 Aug 2013 11:54:00 +0200

The training, as the Summer School itself, has been organized within the framework of the ALTERNATIVE project.

The summer school forms part of a major project on alternative ways of dealing with conflicts in intercultural settings. It focuses on the challenges and opportunities of applying RJ in intercultural and diverse settings. Participants are expected to bring case studies and experiences of practice and research for discussion and study.

The trainers of Foresee Research Group (one of the partners in the project) intended for the training to:
-     give an overview of our action research (incl. its theoretical and practical steps and dilemmas) in an interactive way within the ALTERNATIVE project
-     map some of the existing power structures and conflicts occurring at the Hungarian site
-     enable participants to feel what these roles might mean for the different actors
-     enable participants to feel what it might be to take part in a community circle
-     show our research process by the help of 3 short films and lots of interaction, incl. role plays and other games
-     encourage participants to think about the possible relevance of this approach in their country
-     gain a lot of important input from the participants concerning the work we are doing in the ALTERNATIVE project.
In its methodology, in the frame of a comparative analysis the ALTERNATIVE project combines theoretical research on three large topics: (1) alternative epistemologies of justice and security, (2) conflict intervention in intercultural contexts and (3) existing methods of restorative justice and their relevance in intercultural conflicts with action research carried out in 4 different countries with different types, levels and settings of conflicts.

You can read more about Foresee’s role in the project here.

Foresse R. G. is participating in Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN) Deradicalisation Conference, 8-9 July 2013, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Mon, 22 Jul 2013 19:03:00 +0200

The main working mode of the two-day meeting took the form of interactive workshops that provided a good ground for exchange of information, inspirational dialogues and a great possibility to network.
Main themes of the meeting included:
•    Introduction of the organisations of the participants (practitioners’, field workers’ and researchers)
•    Contextualisation of how ideological extremism and violent radical behaviours occur in different countries with a special focus on South and Eastern European member states and what challenges it provides
•    Sharing different methods and best practices as well as failures to learn from
•    Common challenges of working in this field as civil actors
The conference invited practitioners from many different fields to share and discuss the different approaches and methods in the fight against extremism. To name a few, the Swedish and Italian EXIT help people who are motivated to leave neo-nazi groups or cults in their social empowerment and reintegration. The Italian Association for Victims of Terrorism is setting up a database containing victims’ testimonies of different terror crimes. The University of Osnabrück has an inspirational project of creating counter narratives deconstructing stereotypes and prejudices against ethnic minorities. The Hungarian minority in Slovakia was represented by a non-governmental organisation Fondament. The English RecoRa gives a variety of local support and education for risk groups like young gang members, their families and communities to prevent and manage escalation of hate crimes. The Coalition for Work with Psychotrauma and Peace help in the psychic rehabilitation of victims of war in Croatia. The Slovenian Association for Nonviolent Communication provides various education programs for prisoners of war and domestic violence in order to break individual patterns of aggressive behaviour. Human Dimension OSCE gave an astonishing country report on Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Hungarian Foresee Research Group investigated the question how the restorative approach and practices could be applied in tackling extremism and radical behaviour.
The conference, just as the famous three bridges of Ljubljana, created the opportunity to get connected on many different levels.

Summary written by Zsuzsanna Z. Papp.

„Seeing the person” – Restorative practices among those affected by crime

Mon, 24 Jun 2013 21:27:00 +0200

The judicial mediation conference saw more than 150 guests, as well as an opening speech by Tünde Handó, President of Hungary’s National Judicial Office, and the presenters, coming from all across Europe held presentations introducing all aspects of mediation be it geographical, professional, or tied to a specific branch of the law, thus staying true to the name of the conference in giving an overview.

Foresee’s executive, in her speech introduced the restorative attitude, the main techniques and models as well as the stakeholders of restorative programs, but also spoke of the ideal timing and placing of such programs, and explained when is there the best chance to see involvement and how that can be achieved. She also made mention of Foresee’s projects, like for example the now finished MEREPS Project or the ongoing projetcs, „Peace Making Circles” and „ALTERNATIVE”.

The presentation can be read in Hungarian here.

Best Practices of Community Conflict Management in the Central Eastern European Region

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 12:22:00 +0200

The GPCCM-REG project (“Good Practices of Community Conflict Management in the Central Eastern European Region”, project no. JLS/2010/ISEC/FP/C2 4000001469) was implemented between January 2011 and June 2013 in 5 Member States.

Based on the premise that communities in the Central Eastern European region, Member States face similar conflicts, which directly influence quality of people’s lives and their security perceptions, the project aimed at selecting and evaluating programmes that effectively address such issues. Under professional and financial management of the Hungarian Ministry of Interior, suitable programmes implemented in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Romania, Slovakia and Hungary were selected and evaluated with the help of on-spot visits and interviews.

Moreover, one project of each participating country was presented during a one-and-a-half-day international thematic seminar under the aegis of the European Crime Prevention Network, which was organised in June 2011 in Budapest. This seminar also included presentation of projects from other EU countries, thus it offered an interesting comparison of good practices from various perspectives. The main result of the project is the present publication that includes good practices templates and projects evaluations. Recommendations concerning project planning, content and management included in this publication were elaborated on the basis of the project evaluations. An inseparable part of the publication is an example of a model project plan, which offers essential steps for all those interested in the project implementation activities.

The project was finalised after 29 months of intensive work of all experts involved in it. The project as a whole was coordinated by the Ministry of Interior of Hungary, specifically by the staff responsible for the professional and the financial management. The expert tasks of the project were completed by national experts from Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Romania, Slovakia and Hungary. The experts completed their tasks on an individual basis in their own countries as selectors and evaluators of good practices (3-5 projects for each country), as well as during their joint engagements as an expert working group (evaluating, selecting guidelines, cross-referencing, providing feedback to each other, etc.)

Best practices of community conflict management in Central and Eastern Europe – E-publication coming soon

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 12:07:00 +0200

Based on research findings, a distinction can be made between Member States of the Central Eastern European region and Western European region on the grounds of (apart from other characteristics) value dimensions and community organisation aspects. Due to historical reasons, one of the key distinct features of respective Member States societies is a low confidence level when dealing with institutions.

Because of the above-suggested similarities, the citizens of these Member States face comparable conflicts in often quite different communities, such as neighbourhood or school conflicts, conflicts between members of various ethnic/national minorities and the majority population, religions disputes, inter-generational dissonances, etc. Such community conflicts inevitably affect people’s everyday lives and their ‘feeling of safety’ in general.

During the implementation of policies within its competency, the Ministry of Interior of Hungary frequently faces continuous need for advice. Also, local practitioners need know-how and methods, which would help them manage community conflicts, get stakeholders involved, and plan, finance and deliver conflict prevention and conflict transformation projects in general. The expertise knowledge is particularly needed when it comes to evaluation of practices and exchange of good practices on local, as well as on national level.

We hope that the e-publication offers valuable ideas in terms of concepts and practices, and that it has a potential to become a useful manual for those, who are interested in implementing new projects either on national or international level.

Project Overview

Facing the Presidency of the Council of the European Union in 2011, Hungary, and more closely the Hungarian Ministry of Interior was interested in strengthening the cooperation among the Member States of the region and enabling the national experts to exchange experiences in the field of crime prevention– in order to explore the potential of restorative methods for building safer communities.

Grundtvig REDICT project’s consortium’s final meeting

Mon, 03 Jun 2013 20:21:00 +0200

On 13th May afternoon the partners attended a Danube boat trip, after which they closed the day with a ‘meeting-opener’ diner that has become a project ritual. On the next day Foresee organised an international conference in partnership with the National Institute of Criminology including 3 interactive workshops, entitled ‘The Face behind The Hate’. The REDICT partners participated on this event actively in compliance with one of the emphasized goals of the project - lifelong learning. On the last day of the meeting the partners discussed the important tasks to be achieved for the successful completion of the REDICT project; and as a farewell they took part in a common leaded walk in the Buda Castle District.

Participants of the REDICT project meeting were: Lenka Pavlova, Marie Bohacova, Martina Cinkova and Robin Brzobohaty from the European Institute for Reconciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (ESI); Slavka Karkoskova, Emilia Halagova and Ronald Karkoska from the Slovakian Greek-Catholic Faculty of the University of Presov; Danguole Boguseviciene and Inga Pošiūnaitė from the Lithuanian Association „Iniciatyvu tinklas”; Marco Calabrese, Corinna Marzi, Maria Francesca Corradi, Maria Rita Consegnati, Paola Bucciarelli and Laura Nissolino from the Italian Institute of Collaborative Law; as well as Borbála Fellegi, Eszter Posch and Kitti Salamon from Foresee Research Group.

The purpose of the meeting was to clarify the steps to be taken to achieve the successful completion of the project: inter alia editing, issuing of the brochure and the publications, a deadline for contributing to these matters, development of the project’s website, as well as collection of the videos and images. The partners respect that all participants shape the use of the common products taking their own National Office’s expectations into consideration. Following this we even managed to help each other in the interpretation of the questions to be responded in the Final Report of the project, working in small groups.

After two and a half days the meeting ended with a cultural program: the partners visited one of the World Heritage sites of Budapest, the Buda Castle District, which is one of the most beautiful and romantic places of the capital. The common leaded walk started from the Vienna Gate , affected the Capistran Square and Trinity Square, on the way the partners has been invited by Foresee to taste the artisan traditional Hungarian cakes in the historical milieu of the Ruszwurm Confectionery. Thereafter the Mathias Church’s, the Fishermen’s Bastion’s and the high quality folklore shops’ atmosphere provided a unique experience for the partners, as far as Clark Adam Square.

The Wednesday meeting was very useful from all points of view: the professional work was imaginative and ended effectively, while during the walk the visitors were given a taste of Hungarian culture and history.

Photos of the event can be found here.
The photos were taken by: Marietta Kleineisel, József Novák and Kitti Salamon

„The Face Behind the Hate” - Conference at the National Institute of Criminology

Mon, 03 Jun 2013 19:30:00 +0200

“This workshop intended to make a link between professionals dealing with peaceful conflict resolution techniques, on the one hand, and with the issue of radicalisation and hate crimes, on the other. During the interactive day the attempt was to think loudly and collectively on the above-raised questions: mapping the possible connection points, shared dilemmas, ideas, lessons learnt during our activities and future directions concerning the fields of radicalisation-prevention and conflict resolution – with the possibility to being self-critical and highlightening both successes and challenges.

Dr. György Vókó (director of OKRI), Marie Boháčová, consortium leader of the lifelong learning Grundtvig project REDICT and Dr. Borbála Fellegi (founder and CEO of Foresee Research Group) opened the conference, welcoming the guests. The participants coming from Czech Republic, Slovakia, Lithuania, Italy, Austria, England, Germany and Hungary represented a wide range of experts, including lawyers, social workers, mediators, researchers, judges, prosecutors and policy makers. In a highly interactive way the whole day was devoted to focus on community problems and solutions concerning the issue of intergroup conflicts and prevention of radicalisation. The event coincided the 5th anniversary of founding Foresee Research Group.

Modern times require new ways of resolving problems besides the classical criminal justice approach. Several examples have been brought forward about how we can experience radical manifestations around us in everyday life. The workshops have been focusing on the motto “What do we do, or what can we do in this case?” In the spirit of “Life Long Learning” work has been started.

Mr. Péter Krékó (director of Political Capital Institute, Hungary) gave the first presentation titled “Living without taboos - how to prevent radicalisation in interethnic communities?”

He presented research around the topic of how taboos can affect a community, how far is information conveyed by politics consistent with public opinion, what tensions are caused by the possible differences, what social responses and waves can be triggered by the differences, if and how these could lead to radicalism. According to him taboos are also about telling or not telling the truth. Taboos are often barriers for difficult but open conversation, the lack of which can lead to radicalism and make the speaker appear unauthentic. Talking about taboos is not equal to hate speech!

Mr. Krékó was followed by the part titled “Mediation projects in intercultural communities” where two presenters showed their work. The first was MGR. Zuzana Vasicakova Ocenasova, mediator and dance movement therapist from Slovakia. She reported the experiences of two research projects. The first was Conflict management good practices research project 2011 – 2013 (country-wide mapping), the other was Community mediation and conflict facilitation project 2013 (field work in Eastern Slovakia, Raslavice).

Topics of the presentation: What can we do about the expectations towards the actors in power in making decisions and providing protection for us? What can we do with the fact that the word “conflict” carries a negative connotation so it is rather being avoided? What can be done with the motivations behind community conflicts: that people want to feel safe, they need a space to live, they need an identity and to maintain contacts within the community.

The more layers of the conflict we are able to explore and the more participants can be involved, the greater is the chance for a sustainable agreement to emerge.

The magic of conflict transformation lies in the conflicts to be seen as opportunities that help forming the group cohesion and identity. Also to be seen as natural indicators of unspoken hidden problems which need to be dealt with. It is also a very important aspect how this knowledge can be transferred into practice.

Ms. Gabriella Benedek – national expert of the GPCCM project and project manager of the ALTERNATIVE project (Foresee Research Group, Hungary) – presented ALTERNATIVE, a research project started in February 2012 in "Developing alternative understandings of security and justice through restorative justice approaches in intercultural settings within democratic societies".

“What does it mean to live in a just society? Who has the power defining justice? How can justice be achieved? Is justice universal and a moral concept or rather individual and relative and relational?” - such questions are formulated in the research.” The aim is to provide an alternative and deepened understanding based on empirical evidence of how to handle conflicts within intercultural contexts in democratic societies in order to set up secure solutions for citizens and communities.”

After the above three presentations the participants started working in small groups. The purpose of the first small-group meeting was to make the participants to get to know each other, share their experiences and to be able to formulate questions about conflict resolution and radicalism.

After getting to know each other MR. GYÖGY ZSOMBOK – director of the National Protective Service in Hungary – presented a presentation, entitled „Behind the scenes: the killings against Roma in Hungary from the eyes of the chief policeman” about a series of crimes, which were specifically directed against Roma, followed by the results of the investigation.

After the presentation, which demonstrated in a dramatic and shocking way how radical manifestations can be caused by hatred, a film, titled “Beyond Right and Wrong: Stories of Justice and Forgiveness” was presented. This film “tells the stories of people who both endured and perpetrated cruelty and aggression in the genocide in Rwanda, the violence in Israel/Palestine, and the ‘troubles’ in Northern Ireland”. This film is about extreme situations but is actually showing everyday life. It is shown that there is forgiveness even in such conditions and shows how the victims get to forgiveness. The cycle of violence can be broken, the film ends with this positive experience.

After these two emotionally powerful insights the workshop continued in three smaller groups again. Participants found it difficult to speak after the preceding events but eventually highly meaningful conversations evolved. Rich, deep and valuable ideas were produced focusing on the importance of trust, understanding and forgiveness. Some of the topics and rhetoric emerged from the discussions: Revenge will not solve anything, just start an endless process that can be broken with understanding and forgiveness. Who suffers more: the perpetrator or the victim? Who can judge it? If you look back, your hate is getting stronger, but what if you look ahead? How is the victim able to say to the man who committed terrible violence against her or against her family that “You have hurt me but I am listening to you”, and how she got to the point that she said: “We should learn how to live side by side.” Lots of questions swirled in the air and during the small-group conversations even more came, which are worth dealing with and should be dealt with. Forgiveness is liberating. “I just want to live my life and I just let you to do the same, I let you go.” (A Rwandan women to the man who killed her five children) There are still a lot to do till we would be able to say the same, if we ever could.

Mr. Harald Weilnboeck from the Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN) of European Commission held the “Closing thoughts and move forward” part of the conference, presenting the objectives and operation of their European network of practitioners and policy makers as well as their future plans and goals.

The conference was ended with the performance of the Roma band THERNE PHRALA . They played authentic gipsy music, which inspired many participants for dancing, providing a pleasant relief after the daylong discussion on complex issues.

On the whole it seems that huge knowledge lies within groups and individuals themselves; observations, feelings, conclusions, experiences, which may gain even more meaning if we share them.

The reason for this day becoming so useful and good was the diversity of the participants. This conference was not only about the variety of ideas but also that of nations. Many were working together listening to and learning from each other in an open-minded, respectful, inspiring and joyful atmosphere.

Photos of the event can be found here.
The photos were taken by: Marietta Kleineisel, József Novák and Kitti Salamon

Restorative justice and mediation in Penal Matters in Europe

Mon, 20 May 2013 07:29:00 +0200

The four day-long conference was co-organized by the Criminology department of the University of Greifswald and the University of Gdansk Faculty of Law and sponsored by the European Commission. The subjects of the presentations ranged form building a social support for restorative justice through aspects of criminal politics all the way to the introduction of good practices. The conference ended with a round table discussion about trends and perspectives for restorative justice in European criminal policy.

Forsee’s executive held her presentation, "How Restorative Justice can actually be implemented into a prison in a CEE country with all its limitations and potentials" on the second day of the conference. The presentation mainly focused on the MEREPS project and its findings, but Foresee’s ALTERNATIVE and Peace-making Circle project have also been mentioned.

The agenda of the conference can be downloaded from here.

Everyday crises, conflict resolution in theory and practice

Sat, 11 May 2013 21:26:00 +0200

In her speach she explained the everyday use of restorative approach in conflict resolution: in families, relationships and work environments. She also highlighted the questions and structure that helps moving forward, when the communication has stuck, e.g. listening to the other, involving a neutral party, the learn the needs of the other.
’The mutual respect, justice and responsibility is more and more lacking these days. This is what we need to change to decrease the number of conflicts we face in our everyday life.’- she emphasized in her presentation.

Who we are and what we do

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 18:52:00 +0200

Foresee Research Group is an interdisciplinary think tank of social scientists focusing on peaceful conflict resolution, mediation, restorative justice and crime prevention.

So goes the official answer to the question: „What is Foresee?” Even from the official definition, one can easily arrive to the conclusion, that Foresee is about people. About people who, joined within Foresee, work together towards the common goal, be they professionals or laymen affected by one of the projects. About people, who believe in alternatives, in peaceful conflict resolution, and believe, that Foresee’s 4 C’s (Communication, Community, Conflict Resolution, Cohesion ) can bring positive changes on and individual as well as society level.

This short introductory film lets you meet some of these people.

’Creating a mediator praxis’ training at BKF

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 22:54:00 +0200

Based on the feedback, 98% of the participants was completely contended with both the trainers and the content of the course held by Foresee’s ecexutive, and the mediator of PárBeszéd Mediation. They described their emotions towards the training as positive (’thankful’, ’overall positive’, ’satisfied’, etc.).

The students mentioned the practical examples, the open conversation circles, discussions, cooperative work and the demonstration of different methods as positive qualities of the course as well as the personal atmosphere, the high quality level, the interactivity and last but not least the professionalism, the personality, the attention and the democratic, assertive attitude of the trainers.

According to the participants, from among the legion of knowledge that they have gained throughout the course, the things that they most likely will use in the future are empathy during conflicts, the importance of dialogue, the approach, the techniques for recognizing and handling situations, the possible implementation of the techniques, the attitude modelled by the presenters, and the ability to help resolve conflicts as an outsider.

As the most useful excercises of the training, the participants named the roleplays, the presentation summarizing ADR, mediation situations, group- and pair practices.

Training in the Miskolc House of Opportunities

Sun, 10 Mar 2013 18:09:00 +0100

The training, held together by Foresee’s ecexutive, and the mediator of PárBeszéd Mediation in the Miskolc House of Opportunities saw child-protection experts and experts from the local government as participants.

The aim of the training was for the participants to:
-be able to identify conflicts, the stakeholders of said conflicts, also identify the needs, feelings, fears, competences, resources and goals of these stakeholders.
-familiarize themselves with the applicable models of participation-based conflict management; the preparation of the session, the flow and tools of facilitation.
-have a clearer understanding of the roles the „third party” can play in the process, and understand the logic behind the arguments that help make the choices.
-acknowledge their own strengths and limits.
-think about the possible implementation of thing learned in their own everyday practice.

The participants gave very positive feedback about the training , mentioning mainly the exercises, the mediation methodical knowledge and the importance of „everyday-usable” techniques in their oral and written responses.