Our young team went out into the local community to gain a range of residents views about our project 'Consulting Communities through Youth-Led Climate Awareness'.

RJ Working's Climate Action Consultation is a tool for amplifying young people's voices for positive change in school and college communities. The Consultation is designed to be engaging, thought-provoking and to introduce new concepts around Climate Justice. It is a great way of sparking a long-term conversation around young people's thoughts and feelings on the Climate and Ecological Crises as well as how schools and colleges can respond positively together as a community.

This is an opportunity for Young People from across Cornwall to come together to exchange learning and inspiration at a youth-led climate action festival. Schools from across West Cornwall held the first festival at Heartlands in June 2023.

Based on our involvement with EDI and Diversity groups in local colleges, we were excited for our interns to create a space for these groups, and other interested young people, to come together. We also held an Iftar dinner at Truro College. We had a great time working with the student EDI group at Truro College to explore and celebrate faith and identity surrounding Islam and Ramadan.

As part of our environmental mission we use restorative circles to promote young people's engagement with nature. Our Splanna project, in partnership with Falmouth Art Gallery, supports young people's creativity, developing their wellbeing and agency in relation to environmental issues. In March 2022 some representatives of Splanna took a spoken word poem (rap) to Cornwall's ecological emergence summit at Heartlands, please see their performance here:

Following on from our Tackling Racism Restoratively programme, we have been talking with Cornwall's creative communities about how active anti-racism can contribute to Cornwall's culture of care and welcome. This work has been launched with the support of Abi Hutchinson from Black Voices Cornwall and is overseen by Sandhya Dave.

From March to November 2022 we worked with key school communities in Cornwall to embed Restorative Practice. The aims of this project were: 1. Young people will have increased social bonds, community connection, and feel less isolated. 2. Young people will have reduced risk of school and social exclusion. 3. Young people will have learned and are using the principles of the Restorative model and are sharing these. We are grateful to Westhill for their generous donation of funding which is contributing some of the costs of this work.

We are excited to be supporting a growing relationship between Syrian children living in Cornwall, and children who live on the Isles of Scilly. Five Islands Academy on the Isles of Scilly is one of our closest partner schools, and their commitment to Restorative Practice has led them to grow curious about others and explore issues related to identity, and culture. In turn, we have been building relationships with Syrian children and their families who are now living in Cornwall, through our Culture of Care work in schools, and through creative community workshops. We also run a 1 day training for schools, looking to build a culture of care for refugee children. Click below for more information.

One of the projects within our Restorative Connections Programme is for families from the Gypsy Roma Traveller Community in Cornwall. This project is especially important following the disruption to relationships caused by Covid-19 and the risks of increased inequalities. We are committed to sharing the Restorative model creatively and adapting it to the needs of communities at risk of marginalisation. We are grateful to Children in Need for supporting the wider Restorative Connections Programme of which this project is a part.

So far, in 3 years, 12 cohorts of education & health professionals who gained this qualification have gone on to impact the lives of over 17,000 children & young people.

Community is central to Restorative Practice and RP can contribute to community.  But what does "community" mean to YOU? 

We proudly took part in Summer Wellbeing Festivals across Camborne and Redruth. This was an exciting chance to kick off the project by increasing awareness of how Restorative Practice relates to climate change, making lots of new friends in the communities.

Two of our young team members presented to around 70 young people from two secondary schools and eight Year 6 groups at the 2024 Camborne Youth Conference, helping them to recognise the power of collective community action. This was also a valuable step in solidifying our links with schools in the area.