The University of Sassari is an Italian public university located in Sardinia, which has more than 10,000 students and around 700 academics. It is made up of 13 departments, which also collaborate with numerous university and research centers and institutes.
The research group in social and legal psychology of the department of human and social sciences at the University of Sassari, which has become the restorative justice practices team, has been working for around ten years on the development and testing of a community model that promotes ways of life and conflict management marked by respect for human dignity, for the well-being of individuals and communities.
The team is made up of psychologists specialized in psychotherapy, legal psychology and psychological counseling, a scientific manager, a coordinator and facilitator of reparation conferences, a coordinator of the field of research and processes of well-being ; and a person dedicated to psychological counseling.
To carry out its work, as well as the research and training activities it offers, the University of Sassari has concluded several partnership agreements with the Ministry of Justice which relate to prison administration and juvenile justice in Sardinia.
Since 2014, the team has developed a conceptual tool mobilizing the precepts of restorative justice based on a relational, peaceful, responsible and supportive approach: Co.Re. -Community of Restorative Relations.
This model supports the need to develop intervention systems capable of reducing conflicts within social dynamics, while generating positive dynamics of inclusion. By doing so, the community becomes the place where lifestyles and relationships oriented towards the well-being of the individual and the community and towards peace can be promoted.
The Restorative Justice Practices team at the University of Sassari conducts intervention research on people and systems and offers training in schools, in the community, in different institutions and in the private social sector, constantly present in situations of vulnerability.
In 2020, the University of Sassari was the first institution in Italy to offer restorative justice courses with an orientation towards promoting well-being.
As part of the Harmony project, the restorative justice practices team at the University of Sassari is responsible for designing and monitoring the application of the evaluation protocol for the tools implemented in the field by the partners.
This stage involves the production of a benchmark for evaluating the experimentation process and, at the end of the project, the development of the final evaluation and summary report of the experimentation including recommendations for spin-off. good practices and their replication on a larger scale.
