The aim of the RJ Values & Standards Committee is to define the values, which should determine the minimum requirements practices in the field of restorative justice. As the EFRJ becomes more proactive in promoting public and government support for RJ in general and, more specifically, positive initiatives such as the EU Victims Directive 2012, which calls for good quality and safe RJ services, it is critically important that we can clearly define what we mean by RJ and which values support best practice in an increasing range of contexts. This Committee contributes to recognise the needs of our RJ community to identify the values and minimum standards for providing quality RJ services in Europe, collect information on the efficiency and effectiveness of RJ, and finally create practice guidelines 
and self-assessment tools for RJ organisations.
The team of the Committee is composed by 10 participants, including 1 Board member, 1 Staff member and 8 EFRJ members. If needed, the Committee may invite experts outside the EFRJ membership for further consultation. In the following two years, the Committee will continue to work on creating European quality standards for RJ services.
This Committee needs to consider how RJ standards and values can possibly be monitored and how implementation can be urged, taking into account the new Council of Europe Recommendation as well as the European Directive 2012/29/EU (Victims’ Directive). This Committee will also cooperate with the Training Committee for the creation of training offers to further develop professional competences and of a European register of RJ trainers and consultants within our membership.
In general this Committee:
The members of the Committee are selected based on their experience, profession, motivation to participate, and country representation. Committee members contribute to the work of the EFRJ voluntarily.
Members (2019-2021):
More info: Please contact the Secretariat, or Secretariat representative: Edit Torzs, EFRJ Director, or Board representative: Lars Otto Justad
The RJ Values & Standards Committee is born out of a Working Group: originally, this initiative was planned to last 2 years, but finally the Board agreed this is a crucial topic for our field and transformed the temporary Working Group into a long-lasting Committee. The Working Group was chaired by Tim Chapman and composed by:
1.Belinda Hopkins, director, trainer and consultant of Transforming Conflict (UK)
2.Gian Luigi Lepri, psychologist and coordinator of the RJ city project at Sassari University (Italy)
3.Virginia Domingo de la Fuente, professor and RJ practitioner at the Scientific Society of Restorative Justice (Spain)
4.Diana Ziedina, head of the mediation division of the State Probation Service (Latvia)
5.Monique Anderson, PhD researcher at KU Leuven (Belgium)
6.Claudia Christen-Schneider, Justice Program Manager & RJ Advocate Prison Fellowship Switzerland & Swiss RJ Forum (Switzerland)
7.Patrizia Patrizi, representative of the EFRJ Board
8.Edit Torzs, representative of the EFRJ Secretariat
Below the timeline of this Working Group, until the establishment of the Committee:
