Events
Belong’s experienced team are available to speak at national and international events, contributing their frontline knowledge, expertise and experiences to lead workshops, panels, circles and more. Our most recent events have included:
RJC Annual Conference
To kick off Restorative Justice Week in Autumn 2025, our CEO, RJ Practitioner and RJ Service Manager spoke at the Restorative Justice Council Conference on RJ, Prisons and Hope. We engaged approximately 40 participants in a restorative justice circle, exploring how we can help build restorative pathways to heal harm and disconnection. Participants highlighted how crucial it is to remember that whatever the history and situation, we’re all just people trying to get through. The learning we shared with participants was gleaned from our work in criminal justice settings, but was relevant to attendees working across education, housing and social work settings.
Cultivating Change: Doing and
Being Restorative in Prisons Summit
In September 2025, our Chief Executive presented at Cultivating Change: Doing and Being Restorative in Prisons Summit, hosted by the Restorative Justice (RJ) Council and University in Auckland. This event served as a launch platform for the RJ Council’s comprehensive briefing document which outlines actionable strategies for fostering a restorative culture in the prison system. We showcased the benefits of embedding RJ within prison systems, and shared learning from Belong’s work in HMP Coldingley, HMPYOI Isis, HMPYOI Brinsford, HMP Featherstone and HMP The Mount. Attendees reflected on unhelpful amongst people in prison, beliefs and myths about RJ in prisons, key actions to support RJ in these settings and examples of effective RJ processes. This was a key part of Belong continuing to work towards our objective of influencing prisons become less harmful and more rehabilitative places.
East of England Regional
Probation Women’s Conference.
In April 2025, our CEO presented on Evidence-based Ways of Supporting Women from Global Majority Ethnic Backgrounds on Probation at the East of England Regional Probation Women’s Conference. Approximately 100 participants working at practitioner to senior executive levels, took part in the interactive session. Strategic HMPPS leaders fed back after the session that “the desistance section was particularly relevant as [probation’s] work is aligning more with this theory… staff appreciated understanding how this can work as it’s a shift away from other theories we have been working with, particularly for women.”
Restorative Justice Council’s 5th Annual Conference
The Restorative Justice Council (RJC) is the national, independent membership body for the field of restorative practice. Acting as the national voice for their membership, they advocate the widespread use of all forms of restorative practice, including restorative justice.
In celebration of the Restorative Justice Council’s 25th anniversary, the RJC held a conference to acknowledge the sector’s achievements, face up to the present challenges and imagine future possibilities. Belong took part in the conference, with Belong’s Head of Programmes leading a session on the impact of RJ in the prison system, contributing his expertise in managing Restorative Justice in custodial settings to a discussion on the transformational power of restorative justice for adults and young people.
Belong’s CEO was also invited to take part in a panel discussion on ‘Harnessing the power of Restorative Justice in National Policy’. You can find out more about events ran by the Restorative Justice Council here.
Past events
Howard League for Penal Reform’s Conference
The Howard League for Penal Reform are the world’s oldest prison charity, with a long history of bringing people together to advocate for penal reform.
In September 2022, Belong’s CEO took part in a panel discussion as part of the Howard League for Penal Reform’s conference, ‘Crime, Justice and the Human Condition: Beyond the cris(es) – reframing and reimagining justice”. You can read more about the event, including links to previous conference podcasts and videos, here.
Clink’s Annual Conference – Making Race and Justice Everybody’s business
It was an honour for Belong to have a stall at Clinks annual conference 2023. Clinks supports, promotes and represents the voluntary sector working with people in the criminal justice system and their families. Find out more
The Clinks annual conference, themed this year around ’Making Race and Justice Everybody’s business’ provided a platform for specialist members who are led by/for racially minoritised people to share their expertise on how to best support people from racially minoritised communities.
Belong used their stall to share art work from our service users, evaluation reports from our services, and to share our experiences working with racially minoritised communities.
Mint House
The Mint House is a networking centre which seeks to raise awareness of restorative practice and to promote collaboration among practitioners and restorative justice supporters. Keen to promote access to restorative interventions, the Mint House regularly hold cross-sector events.
Belong have participated in a number of Mint House events. For example, a panel disucssion with Belong’s Head of Programmes on the theme “Restorative Justice in Prisons: Where Next?”, which you can watch on YouTube.
In May 2023, Belong’s CEO contributed to a One-Day conference held by Mint House, on ‘Communicating Restorative Justice to people who harm’.
Find more events held by Mint House here.
Other Events
Other events that Belong have participated in include the Why Me? Annual Conference in 2022, and internationally, an event comparing the experiences of young people accessing RJ in Italy and the UK with the British Embassy in Rome.