The RJ4All International Institute is a charitable NGO with a mission to advance community cohesion and redistribute power within society at the local, national and international levels. We do this by using the power of education, sports and arts as well as the practices and values of restorative justice including power-sharing, fairness, equality, dignity and respect. RJ4All is the leading European restorative justice network with members from over 40 countries. We achieve our charitable aims by:

  • Carrying out educational projects and information campaigns in the interest of children and young people, communities, victims and marginalised groups.
    • Providing internships and high-quality volunteering opportunities involving social action to young people at risk of being affected by crime and other marginalised groups
    • Bringing harmed parties together through restorative justice to negotiate solutions and restore the harm experienced
    • Increasing public awareness of restorative justice, human rights and intercultural dialogue.
    • Carrying out evaluations and research on restorative justice, criminal justice, human rights and equality programmes
    • Building bridges between grass communities and the powerful, as well as acting as a learning network between practitioners, researchers, policymakers and users of the justice system
    • Increasing knowledge and pushing the boundaries of restorative justice especially in contested areas of practice (e.g. domestic violence, sexual abuse & hate crimes).
    • Making restorative justice more accessible to young people, junior researchers, students, practitioners, policymakers, the public and the media.
    • Influence international, regional and local policy, legislation and practice.
    • Providing expert, tailored and independent advice on restorative justice, human rights, equality and criminal justice.
    RJ4All is governed by a Board of non-executive directors with expertise from criminal justice and user service delivery, front-line work with marginalised groups, campaigning, academia and research (https://www.rj4all.info/our-team).

RJ4All is run by its Founder and Director, Professor Dr. Theo Gavrielides, an international expert in user-led research methods and social policy especially in the areas of restorative justice, criminal justice and human rights (see https://www.theogavrielides.com/bio). The Director is supported by an operations’ team of international experts (https://www.rj4all.info/RJ4all-team). RJ4All hosts at least 5 part-time interns on a monthly basis and engages at least 200 volunteers annually. RJ4All has received the Quality Label for the European Solidarity Corps and works in close collaboration with EURODESK UK. We are also supported by an independent Academic and Editorial Board and an International Advisory Board. Their membership includes some of the most prominent academics, researchers and practitioners in the areas that we cover. Within this Board, there is an Ethics Committee that reviews Ethics Applications when vulnerable individuals are involved in our work. Working for more than 10 years in the area of equality, community cohesion, youth and justice, we have developed numerous strong partnerships with civil society, statutory and non-statutory organizations, locally, nationally and internationally. Acting as a national and European network, we share expertise and best practice among our users, partners and networks. As a membership organization, RJ4All has over 3000 registered individuals and organisations from across the UK, Europe and overseas. We communicate with our members on a bimonthly basis via e-newsletters and blogs that are written by them and the RJ4All team. RJ4All also hosts the youth-led FRED campaign which is a pan-European initiative aiming to promote the values of Freedom Respect Equality and Dignity (see http://www.fredcampaign.org). Evidence-driven practice and social policy are important to RJ4All and thus it has in place efficient and elaborate internal and external quality control systems. Putting emphasis on the quality of our services, we are dedicated to measuring our impact on our users and the wider society. Exploiting the Theory of Change and using user-led evaluation methods, we produce high quality evidence-based outcomes that allow us to review our work and improve our approaches.

RJ4All also runs an independent, publishing arm. RJ4All Publications is an impactful publisher specialising in social sciences and the publication of cutting-edge research. We have published books on youth and justice, hate crime, human rights, gender equality, domestic violence and many more. RJ4All Publications is also the publisher of the leading international, peer-reviewed Internet Journal of Restorative Justice (IJRJ) and the Youth Voice Journal (YVJ). We work with our distributors (e.g. EBSCO, British Library) to disseminate our publications to over 200,000 institutions from around the world.