We are New Zealand’s national provider of restorative justice for harmful sexual behaviour and sexual violence. We work with people of all backgrounds and walks of life – no matter who they are, where they live, or what the circumstances of their personal experience of harm.
We also sometimes assist with restorative approaches to sorting out what happened, when it might not yet be clear that someone is accountable for causing harm through their sexual behaviour.
Chair
Debbi Tohill joined the board of Project Restore in 2016.
She is currently the Executive Director of Rape Prevention Education Whakatu Mauri Trust based in Tamaki Makarau. Debbi has over twenty five years’ experience in the not for profit and public sector, previously working in mental health at the Mental Health Foundation and as National Manager for the Werry Centre for Child and Adolescent Mental Health workforce development programme (University of Auckland). She is the Prevention Portfolio holder on TOAH-NNEST.
Debbi is passionate about ensuring people have access to good quality information and education about healthy relationships. She strongly supports the benefits of supporting survivors and their support people through the restorative process as part of their healing journey.
Treasurer
Matthew grew up in Palmerston North, but after time in Wellington and overseas, now calls Auckland home. His career has spanned the public and private sectors, and he currently works in IT for the ANZ bank. For several years he also volunteered as a Lifeline telephone Counsellor. He serves on the Board as Treasurer.
Trustee, Founder
Dr Shirley Jülich is an Associate Professor in the School of Social Work, Massey University, Albany. Shirley’s PhD investigated the complex relationship between the criminal justice system, restorative justice, and child sexual abuse from the perspective of adult survivors of child sexual abuse.
Following the completion of her PhD her research interests have continued to focus on the intersection of gendered violence, recovery, and justice, including the economic consequences this has for victim-survivors, offenders, their families and the broader society. Shirley has remained active in community practice in both the restorative justice and sexual violence sectors. She was a member of Te Oritenga, the first restorative justice provider group in New Zealand and is a founding member of Project Restore.
Trustee & Founder
Kathryn is the Executive Director of HELP – support service for survivors of sexual violence in the Auckland central and north areas. She has worked in the sexual violence response sector for several decades, following clinical work in Mental Health Services and a research role at the University of Auckland.
Highlights of her work in the sector include collaborative projects such as establishment of the national organisation TOAH-NNEST, development of good practice guidelines for crisis support services which are used nationally, and currently a project with Korowai Tumanako looking at changes to consent law and restorative practice through the criminal justice system.
She was also a part of the original team which developed Project Restore’s model of practice.
Board Member
Shane is a qualified, registered social worker who has been working in the criminal justice, child protection, and harmful sexual behaviour sectors since 1999. Since May 2021, Shane has been working as a child protection educator and consultant with Child Matters, which feels like a good culmination of all of his experience.
Prior to this he worked for 15 years with Safe Network as a social worker, trainer, therapist, and as part of the leadership and management team. Through this he gained valuable skills and knowledge of the complex dynamics of harmful sexual behaviour. During this time Shane was involved for a short time on the TOAH-NNEST Tau Iwi caucus representing the harmful sexual behaviour sector. Shane’s child protection experience was expanded through his role as the Child Protection Service Coordinator for the Counties Manukau DHB for four years, and as a supervisor for Oranga Tamariki (then Child Youth and Family) for 18 months. Shane joined the Project Restore Board in 2021 to support the Kaupapa of restoration and to bring the voices of child protection and harmful sexual behaviour dynamics into our journey.
General Manager
Jan hails from Wellington but has called Auckland home for many years. A marketing strategist and company director with an extensive background in the advertising and communications sector, launching and sustaining some of New Zealand’s best-known brands. A skilled communicator, Jan brings experience in media relations, marketing and sponsorship.
Jan has spent the last fourteen years working in leadership roles in the not-for-profit sector; managing diverse teams, growing revenue, building brands, fundraising and donor communications. Governance wise, Jan is a trustee of Osteoporosis NZ, The Covert Theatre and a member of the Institute of Directors. At Project Restore Jan loves to inspire and motivate others to achieve shared vision, strategic goals and results.
Clinical Consultant
Kate is a Registered Psychotherapist and has been in practice for 19 years, a supervisor for 10 years. She has practiced in the UK, where she grew up and in Aotearoa / New Zealand since 2007. Alongside Kates clinical practice she has managed homeless, drug and alcohol, sexual violence and refugee NGO services. She has also taught at Tertiary institutions.
With 15 years of experience in the sexual violence field, Kate took up the role as Clinical Consultant for Project Restore in April 2021. This role involves clinical oversight of cases, group and individual supervision and support to the clinical manager and the senior leadership team.
Kate is also a Registered ACC Provider.
Clinical Manager
Kerri’s roots are in Canada where she grew up, but in her heart she is all Kiwi. Since migrating here in 2007 she has worked extensively in the sector in both preventative and crisis forums. She headed the crisis response in Waitemata for Family Violence, Sexual Violence and Refuge for eight years, sadly overseeing more than 15,000 cases while in that role.
She has extensive experience leading teams in not only the violence sector, but also care and protection, youth residential care and is a supervisor of Social Workers. She regularly lectures at Universities on Social Practice and Violence. She has worked on the Whangaia Nga Pa Harakeke Board as a Community Representative with NZ Police and is the Chair of Unitec’s Advisory Board for Social Practice.
Kerri firmly believes in Project Restore’s 3 legged stool model as it promotes survivor driven justice while supporting people who have caused harm with tools to take true accountability and make change.
Operations Manager
Lucy is originally from and UK but has resided in Auckland for over 5 years. Her background includes programme and operations management in the charity, travel and cooperate sectors and she has always been passionate about working for organisations that make a difference to people’s lives.
Lucy has a degree in Psychology and is also a yoga teacher with training in somatic movement and trauma-informed teaching. At Project Restore Lucy manages the daily operations and loves her work, knowing the organisation is having a positive impact on people’s lives every day.
Special Projects
Susan is married and she has 3 adult children and grandchildren. She believes in the importance of a well-balanced life and tries to live her life accordingly. – spiritual, mental, physical wellbeing and the importance of relationships.
A qualified counsellor and social worker, Susan has her own private practise in counselling and is a registered ACC counsellor both sensitive claims and physical injury. Her main theoretical orientation is a post-modern approach with narrative therapy, solution focused and strengths-based approaches all sitting comfortably in her practice. She strongly holds to the belief that the person is not the problem – the problem is the problem and we all have capacity to heal and live well. She loves being part of helping people to live more fulfilling and satisfying lives.
Administrative Assistant
Julia is based in Auckland. She has worked in administration previously as a Supervisor for Print & Distribution for the past 8 years. She works as an Administration Assistant at Project Restore NZ assisting PRNZ’s Clinical Manager, processing new referrals and liaising with Specialist’s & Facilitators.
Transcriber
Marg worked as a Legal PA in Auckland for 14 years before leaving paid employment to raise her 7 children.
On returning to work Marg held Office Manager roles in a couple of Health organisations before joining SAFE Network (Counselling Service Provider) where she worked for 10 years in their front office. Between enjoying time with her 7 grandchildren, Marg contracts to Project Restore as the transcriber of conferences.
Senior Facilitation Specialist
Fiona grew up in Auckland and has four adult children. Her first career was as a nurse working in family planning sexuality education and sexual health clinics amongst other roles. She started doing counselling working in a drug and alcohol rehab, and as a callout advocate for family violence before moving to restorative justice. She has been providing restorative processes in a variety of settings since 1999.
As a skilled Facilitator Assessor (with the Resolution Institute) Fiona has also provided training in Restorative Justice and has extensive experience in RJ facilitation for family violence and sexual violence cases. As an entrepreneur she has been involved in many start-ups both in private businesses and in the not-for-profit space including Restorative Practices Aotearoa. Fiona is a founding member of Project Restore and is currently a senior Facilitator, endorsed for sexual and family violence cases. She has been instrumental in developing the processes Project Restore continue to use today.
Facilitation Specialist
Dale Anderson has been a facilitator for restorative justice for the past nine years, in five different regions, and increasingly sees the value that facilitating meetings ‘with’ people brings to those who have either caused harm or have been harmed.
Dale’s particular approach engages participants in sharing their experience to find their own solutions and understand their experience to affect healing and change. This is achieved by asking the right questions and gaining a deep understanding of the particular issues involved to ensure the people directly affected by the harm aren’t treated as outsiders. Dale believes the restorative process provides meaningful outcomes that other processes simply cannot achieve.
Difficult conversations are achieved successfully by creating a safe space where people can express themselves without the fear of being judged. The strength of the professional relationship with participants are at the heart of her practice. It is a core belief of Dale’s that all people should be entitled to receive the experience of self-determination and autonomy in their lives, empowering both offenders and victims to determine what their needs are and how these should be met.
Dale is of Ngati Ruanui and Ngati Manaiapoto descent, as well as English, Irish and Scottish ancestry.
Facilitation Specialist
Alex Zuur is a registered social worker and an accredited sexual harm restorative justice facilitator with significant experience in designing and implementing trauma informed responses to harm. She has a strong foundation in front line street outreach, complex case management, and clinical risk assessment.
She currently works for Victoria University, Aspen Restorative Consulting and Project Restore where she facilitates restorative processes for complex sexual harm and also provides training and consultation services to support organisations prevent and respond to sexual harm through holistic, trauma-informed and restorative strategies. Alex has also worked internationally and across New Zealand on designing and facilitating large scale reconciliation and restorative processes to address different types of institutional, historical and community wide harm.
Alex holds a Bachelor of Social Work from the University of British Columbia and a Masters of Science in Social Work from Columbia University. She is also trained as a trauma informed yoga teacher, as a mediator, and has a number of advanced certifications in complex restorative justice case facilitation.
Alex also enjoys the opportunity to give back to her community as a Search and Rescue Volunteer with Wellington LandSAR and finds nourishment from trail running, surfing and cooking.
Senior Survivor Specialist
Jennifer was born and raised in West Auckland, she has two adult children and a granddaughter that she delights in. After a number of career moves, she entered the counselling world where she gained experience working with survivors of sexual violence at HELP Auckland. In this work Jennifer was introduced to restorative justice processes and felt it could offer another opportunity for healing and recovery.
Jennifer is one of Project Restore’s founding members and was instrumental in the design and delivery of Project Restore’s model. She has been working as a survivor specialist with Project Restore since it began in 2005. She brings a unique and valuable insight into how restorative justice may meet the needs of survivors and how to best support them to have their needs met. Jennifer is a NZ Restorative Justice Sexual Offending accredited specialist.
Survivor Specalist
Jan was born in England but is now proudly a citizen of Aotearoa, married to a Kiwi and living in Otautahi, Christchurch. She has been working as a therapist for over 30 years and now has a Masters Degree in Arts Therapy. She is a registered ACC counselor with extensive experience of working with trauma.
Jan has worked with the STOP Adolescent programme with adolescents who engage in harmful sexual behaviour and more recently with survivors of sexual abuse at the Start Trust. She brings with her knowledge of the impacts of harmful sexual behaviour on survivors and families and the importance of accountability to the healing process.
Survivor Specialist
Natalie grew up in Samoa and Invercargill and has been living in Auckland with her family since 1996 . Natalie has 2 adult children. She has over 10 years’ experience as a Counsellor and a Social Worker in the community and has over 8 years’ experience in the Restorative Justice field. She works as a Survivor Specialist at Project Restore NZ and loves being part of the team and bringing in her experience and Pasifika perspective where necessary in helping to make a difference for those impacted by Sexual violence.
Survivor Specialist
TBC
Senior Accountability Specialist
Tony Lindquist worked as a self-employed tradesman for many years before getting into social work in the 1980s. In 1984 he moved to Blenhiem as a Probation Officer which encompassed working closely with the Community to help provide positive support for offenders. It also involved working closely with “Head Office and “The Cultural Advisor Group.” After a return to Auckland in 1995, still with Corrections he moved to Te Piriti, a unit specialising in working with child sexual offenders as the reintegration co-ordinator. In 2005 Tony started working as a counsellor at the Problem Gambling Foundation after gaining a Grad Dip Counselling. Working as an Harmful Sexual Behaviour Specialist, Tony works to help people that cause sexual harm to another, to take responsibility for their behaviour thereby helping restore the imbalance their actions have caused and allowing the survivor to reclaim their mana.
Accountability Specialist
Mike lives in the Canterbury area where he was born and bred. He lives with his wife and they have twin boys who now both live in Australia. Mike has a Masters’ Degree from Canterbury University based on intimacy and relationship styles and has worked in the Harmful Sexual Behaviour field for 20 years. He is currently undertaking a PhD at Canterbury in the field of Sports Psychology while working for Project Restore. Mike enjoys providing an opportunity for people that have done harm to fully understand the impacts of their behaviour and take responsibility for their actions.
Accountability Specialist
Ko Alex Ness ahau,
Ko Te Whanganui-a-Tara ahau,
Alex Ness is a father of 3 and lives in Wellington. He has spent much of his career working with people who are trying to make change in their lives. He believes in the healing that can come from people fronting up when they have done harm. Alex works hard to create spaces where people can begin that hard work of fronting up. Mauri ora.
Accountability Specialist
Hamish Dixon trained as a clinical psychologist at Canterbury University and worked in New Zealand and England in adult psychiatric settings before moving to Wellington as a senior psychologist doing child adolescent and family work. This led him into specialising in working in family situations where abuse had occurred. He became increasingly involved in working with men who had acted abusively’ He was awarded a Winston Churchill Fellowship to study programmes in America for treating men who had sexually harmed others.
He helped set up Wellstop in 1993 and became general manager of this agency which provides treatment for adults, adolescents and children who have sexually harmed others and provides support for their families in the lower half of the North Island. After leaving his role as General Manager at Wellstop Hamish has worked part-time as a Harmful Sexual Behaviour Specialist for Project Restore
Accountability Specialist
Stan Rapatini (Ngāpuhi / Kāi Tahu) is an experienced therapist, working the last twenty years in the family violence sector with adult males in group and individual work. Stan has spent over ten years as a Harmful Sexual Behaviour specialist at Project Restore and has also worked at SAFE Network (child sexual offending treatment programme) as a therapist for eight years working on the Children, Youth and Adult programmes doing individual, group, family and camp work.
Please contact us if you’re interested in joining the Project Restore team.
Alternatively send your CV to [email protected]
Project Restore NZ, PO Box 8423, Symonds Street, Auckland, [email protected].
Last updated September 2022 C PRNZ
Our notes and anything you tell us are confidential between you and Project Restore NZ. There are, however, a few exceptions to this which we will discuss in detail if you should wish to engage with our service.
We always deal with confidential information in accordance with the statutory requirements.
If you feel dissatisfied with an aspect of the service you receive at Project Restore or feel like your rights are not being upheld, please let your Specialist or one of the Management Team know. Our complaints procedure and the relevant forms can be requested from our head office, or you can share your complaint via email, in a letter or over the phone.
We aim to provide the highest level of service possible, so will do our best to resolve your concerns and improve where we can.
If you need help making a complaint, there is a free advocacy service available through the Health and Disability commission: 0800 11 22 33 www.advocacy.org.nz
Two parties coming together to address the harm that has been done. It involves a meeting/hui, that we call an RJ Conference, that aim to meet the needs of all those who have been harmed and holds those who caused the harm accountable. It offers the opportunity for the person who caused the harm to understand and take responsibility for the impact their actions have had.
If a meeting/hui is not appropriate we will discuss your options for a restorative process without having to come face to face with the person who harmed you if that is your wish.
We work with both parties to prepare them for an RJ process and to ensure we fully understand what a successful outcome would look like. This will vary case by case, and with the people involved regarding their journey and preparedness to progress between assessment and preparation stage through to Conference.
Participation is voluntary all the way through the process so if either party declines or no longer wishes to participate then the process will end. If Project Restore team members decide that the process is no longer appropriate or safe, they can also slow down, pause, or halt a process.
This will depend on how soon we receive a referral and the supporting information needed so that we are able to clinically review the referral before beginning the process. We also take into consideration our team’s availability. However, we expect to begin contact within a minimum of two weeks of receiving all the referral information.
The service is free when we consider Court or Community referrals, however there may be travel costs i.e., parking or transferring between meetings which you will need to meet. These will be discussed with each party when we begin our process. We also work privately with organisations who need our help within the own resolution workflow process.
Yes, we are a nationwide service and cover all Aotearoa.
Yes, we have a team of Specialists who work with each party individually and will work with you both to coordinate a process where you can both come together for a Restorative Justice (RJ) Conference.
Possibly, once we discuss your circumstances, we can discuss what your restorative process options are.
Yes. A person who has been harmed, or an agency advocating on their behalf can make a referral for those survivors who don’t want to go through the Court system. Once a referral is made a Survivor Specialist will get in touch and help the survivor to understand their options and plan what this type of engagement would look like.
We do require both parties to be involved in a Restorative Justice process, therefore we will need to have contact details for both parties to begin to assess the case.
For young children we will work alongside the support person of the child/ren parent/caregiver as a representative of that person as required. For older children and teens, we would work with both the young person and their (parents/ whanau) with the proviso that the young person’s wishes are paramount. They must be able to have a deciding voice in this process for them to find healing. Even if they don’t wish to carry on with the RJ process, with their permission, we may still continue to help the whanau find some resolution.
Not necessarily, we will discuss your options for a restorative process without having to come face to face with the person who harmed you if that is your wish.
This ensures there is support in place for all parties involved during and following the restorative justice process. This is part of our model and the Ministry of Justice Standards. If you do not wish to have a support person involved, we are not able to proceed. This makes sure that the people within your circle or community know how to support you going forward.
No, it is not standard practice to include children in Conferences. We will work alongside the support person of the child/ren parent/caregiver as a representative of that person as required. Older children and teens may need to be involved as part of their healing journey, but this will be assessed on a case-by-case basis and will require more support to prevent any further trauma.
This will depend on the age of the young person, and the support services/systems involved in their care. If there is support in place and after clinical review it is deemed safe and appropriate to proceed, we will discuss what restorative processes would be available.
The judge takes into consideration expressions of remorse and survivor’s views along with all the other information gathered for sentencing. If these are evidenced in the RJ report, then the Judge can give a 10 – 15% discount much like an early guilty plea. However, the process is very challenging for the person with harmful sexual behaviour and requires them to face up to the harm they have caused and seek to make amends directly to the person they have harmed. If the person with harmful sexual behaviour does not show genuine remorse this will also be evidenced in the report, and they may end up with a longer sentence as a result. The victims’ views, impacts and how they experienced the person with harmful sexual behaviour in the meeting is also evidenced in the report. This dialogue between them is very insightful to the judge to help them make the right decision.
Our team will work with parents in all cases concerning young people to help them understand what their child might need and how to support them through the RJ process, but the process is based on the age appropriateness the survivor
Young children – often parents/caregivers stand in for a young child during a restorative justice process. Older children and teens- the RJ journey is for them, and they must have a voice in the process including who is involved and what form that support might take.