Principles and Practice of Restorative Just Culture
Various dates throughout the year (see Programme Dates tab for further information) | 4 days over a 3 week period

As professor Sidney Dekker, thought leader and author on Restorative Just Culture writes (Dekker 2019) 

“Restorative justice is a process where all stakeholders affected by an injustice have an opportunity to discuss how they have been affected by the injustice and to decide what should be done to repair the harm". 

Restorative practices have existed since people lived in communities. Negotiations followed a transgression, and were concluded with compensation to the victim and his or her community, and with reintegrating the ‘offender'. Victims, offenders and their communities were all involved or represented in the negotiations:  

• An event causes harm, and the response should repair that harm. This includes taking responsibility, making amends, and learning from the event. 
• People involved in, and affected by, the harm collaboratively decide on what needs to be done.  
• This helps restore trust between stakeholders, empowers victims, and reintegrates practitioners into the community.  

Restorative justice deals with consequences and causes of an event. It isn’t just between the ‘offender’ and their ‘judge’, and it doesn’t just pursue the narrow facts to secure, for example, a dismissal. Instead, it facilitates a dialogue to identify the many sides of an event and its complex causal web. With a deep understanding of how success is normally assured, and how a negative event could come about, it can create a fair response and identify improvements. 

Mersey Care NHS FT 

The Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust has implemented a Restorative Just Culture founded on Sidney’s guidelines and has successfully seen a 54% reduction in disciplinary investigations over the last two years despite the organisation more than doubling in size in the same period. The trust has also realised a significant reduction in dismissals and suspensions leading to a substantial reduction in costs. During the same period it has also seen improved staff engagement and safety culture scores as measured by the national staff survey.  

The trust has recently been rated as Good by the Care Quality Commission following an inspection (read more on this here and view the report ratings here). Mersey Care also won the Healthcare Managers People award for the Restorative Just Culture initiative. The benefits are possible for any organisation that is prepared to implement a Restorative Just Culture. Many feel that we have a moral obligation to apply Restorative Just Culture principles out of respect for our colleagues, service users, patients and other stakeholders. 

In 2018, Executive Director of Workforce at Mersey Care, Amanda Oates, was interviewed by the Innovation Agency on the Trust's adoption of a Just and Learning Culture:

Testimonials

“The course helped our middle managers understanding of the principles of JRC and highlighted the cultural change needed to be able to really embed them within the Trust. Working through both practical and live examples coupled with the excellent facilitation and evidence base provided by Northumbria and Mersey care made the course a definite success!"

"The overall course was delivered with real passion and enthusiasm and this was clearly reflected in how the group engaged in all aspects of the course. The use of practical experiences of real cases when using the four step approach was extremely helpful in order to assist looking at things from a different perspective/mind-set. Thoroughly enjoyed the experience and would definitely recommend this course."

"All staff delivering were clearly very passionate about the subject matter and were able   to clearly relate to their own experiences which made the learning much more interesting and relevant."

"The whole course was an excellent balance of academic  research based  information, and practical application of the theories to practice."

"Truly inspirational, thought provoking course"

Our first two modules are out now and easily viewed online. They are aimed at HR practitioners but are accessible to anyone working with people in organisations. Each module can take 20 minutes to speed through but if you take time to look at the wider resources and videos, do set aside some more time to consider the messages thoroughly. The modules are available with British Sign Language and you can pause them at any point.

The first module is designed to assist HR practitioners and anyone supporting people who are keen to deliver high standards with consistency and objectivity. We tell the story of what happened in one NHS trust, Mersey Care. We look at how being a rules based organisation meant there was a lack of awareness of the psychological harm of some HR processes. This led in a number of cases to serious implications for staff working there. The module says how this can damage a whole trust. It asks how can the organisation learn from this. This module then asks whether this is happening in your organisation and what can be done about it? We go into more detail and ask what about bystanders?  Change can be difficult but viewing this session is the start of the journey Mersey Care took. You can take it as well.

View module 1 of our free online learning tool here

In the second module we acknowledge that mistakes can and will happen. We then ask how things not going as expected can affect those HR practices. Does your own HR and patient safety practice support the restorative justice approach? If you take the opportunity to learn there will be benefits to workforce and retention. The module offers several real life scenarios to work through. We consider each example and the effects on staff to reflect on the learning that can come from them. We then look at the wider effects of hurt – the implications for families, the whole organisation and far beyond it.

View module 2 of our free online learning tool here

This programme is available for organisational or combined organisational bookings for up to 40 delegates delivered by experts from Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust and Northumbria University, via our Virtual campus or at an organisations premises or preferred location (COVID-19 restrictions permitting). The course is delivered in 4 days over a 3 week period.

We offer select open programme dates to individuals for booking, and closed dates are available for organisational bookings only.

Available dates up to October 2022 are now full. New dates from November 2022 – July 2023 will be available shortly.

Please complete the following form to register your interest for the programme.