European project Restorative Justice: Strategies for Change was created in 2019 as a joint European platform Forum for Restorative Justice and nine European states including the Czech Republic. The initiators of the project are Dr. Ian Marder from Maynooth University Ireland and Gert Jan Slump from Restorative Justice Netherlands.
One of the main stimuli for the creation of this project was the adoption of the new recommendation of the Council of Europe on restorative justice in criminal matters. The goal of the project is to support the development of restorative justice at the level of individual states in the next five years and to share experience with each other during joint meetings.
In each of the member states, there are national groups whose task is to activate individual actors in the field of criminal justice and create a national strategy for the wide application of restorative justice. Members of the Czech national group are: Andrea Matoušková (Probation and Mediation Service), Petra Masopust Šachová (Institute for Restorative Justice, Faculty of Law, Palacký University), Jan Tomášek (Institute for Criminology and Social Prevention), Karel Dvořák (Ministry of Justice) and Pavel Horák (Prison Service of the Czech Republic).