Marian Liebmann is a freelance mediation trainer, consultant and writer. Her former affiliations include probation officer, victim support worker, and director of Mediation UK. Marian's restorative justice work has been conducted in the areas of

• education

• art therapy

• various mediation practices (community, victim/offender and schools).  

For eight years she worked as director and projects adviser for Mediation UK, the UK’s umbrella organization for mediation.  For the last four years, Marian has worked as a freelance trainer, and her endeavors have included training several Youth Offending Teams in the UK, plus carrying out RJ training in Uganda, Russia and three West African countries.

Marian has also developed workshops on ‘art and conflict’.  She describes these workshops in this way:

“Conflict is an emotive subject. This course is about finding new ways to look at it, through a variety of practical art exercises - individual, pairs and group - to gain insights into different aspects of conflict, conflict resolution & mediation.”

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There has been a real burgeoning of Restorative Justice activity over the last two years in the UK.

The new Youth Offending Teams are enthusiastic about their role in preventing young people from offending and in helping to repair the harm to victims and the community.

Community mediation services are busy re-training to take on victim/offender work.

Community organizations are providing worthwhile placements for young people to undertake reparation to the community.

People can become involved just by knowing more about Restorative Justice and explaining it to others. There are also opportunities to become more actively involved as volunteers in many capacities. The hope is that this new way of looking at crime and harm can really make a change for victims, offenders and the community.

(From an article written for a conference for church people, October 2001.)

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Leading Edge.  Marian's current research and activities include:

• Research on Restorative Justice in Custodial Settings

• Training for Youth Offending Teams

• Victim Awareness and Restorative Approaches training for Youth Justice Boards

• Art & Conflict workshops

• Possible further training work in Africa

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Reach Marian Liebmann at marian@liebmann.org.uk

Bibliography