Ideas shared at Restorative City event

Jennifer Llewellyn Photo/File

It's being dubbed a conference, but organisers say the Whanganui Restorative City conference at the end of next month will be anything but a talk-fest.

The two-day conference - on March 28 and 29 - will have its share of keynote speakers but Shelly Harkness, Restorative Practices Whanganui facilitator, said the timetable would include small and intense workshops that will report back to the conference.

Ms Harkness said the conference has the working title of "making sense of restorative practice - an international exchange of ideas".

"While there will some guest speakers, the aim of this conference is to split delegates into smaller working groups so they can question those keynote speakers, discuss issues and then come back to conference at the end of the session with their ideas," she said.

Heritage House is the venue with the opening at 8.45am followed by an address by Jennifer Llewellyn, an associate law professor at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia and currently an adviser to the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission. She has written a book on restorative justice and recently presented papers at the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates in Warsaw.

She was in Wanganui in December 2012, and told the Chronicle on that visit that restorative justice can be used anywhere from schools to resolve bullying to institutional homes where there may be conflict, and the workplace.

Learning workshops will take up the rest of the day before a dinner on Friday night. The guest speaker is Kim Workman, well known for his work in New Zealand's prison system.

The workshops continue through Saturday morning before the conference winds up around midday.

Ms Harkness said as well as attracting local delegates they had received expressions of interest as far afield as Hobart.

Registration costs $75 per person (from not-for-profit organisations) and $100 per person (for businesses).

Registrations are now open. Email info@restorativepracticeswhanganui.co.nz, see www.restorativepracticeswhanganui.co.nz, or telephone (06) 343 3648.