´Make Peace´ - A collaborative project about restorative practices in areas affected by violence: Knowledge-building, implementation and practice

Sweden is currently facing unprecedented societal challenges related to gang crime.

The response at both political and criminal justice levels has been dominated by repressive measures, but these have so far had marginal effects and there is a great and urgent need to find alternative ways of working with crime prevention and conflict resolution in the social work field. ´Make Peace´ is a collaborative project that brings together practice-related actors and authorities with the aim to develop a common knowledge and practice base for integrating restorative social work practices in areas affected by violence and conflicts.

The project is founded on an already initiated collaboration, grounded in an analysis of clients’ needs in the local area, with representatives of the social service in Gothenburg Northeast, the Reconciliation Group, the Rescue Mission, Reningsborg, the County Administrative Board of Västra Götaland and the Department of Social Work at the University of Gothenburg.

The ´Make Peace´ project brings this collaboration to an operational level.

The project spans over two years and is carried out in four phases; in which the research team plays an integrated and active role in each: 1) Competence development and formalisation; 2) Strategy, information and ‘buy-in’, 3) Implementation and piloting of reparative circles/meetings, 4) Analysis, compilation and dissemination of results.

The overall aim is to develop an evidencebase for the development of both theoretical and practical know-how and collaborative strategies that allows for restorative justice to be integrated into social work practice, where conflict resolution and crime prevention take a centre stage at both individual, group and community levels.

Civil actors, relatives and the wider community all have a role to play in restorative justice processes, and such practices can also be a way to build trust, social cohesion and resilience in communities.

The ´Make Peace´ project constitutes an important prerequisite for an exchange of knowledge and experiences that has the potential to develop both practices and research in social work that centers collaborative forms of conflict resolution and crime prevention, with the aim of allowing for changes and restoration in areas and among groups who are affected by violence and friction.