In February 2025, Dr. Threase Kessie (Assistant Professor in Design Innovation, Department of Design Innovation) and Dr. Ian Marder (Associate Professor in Criminology, School of Law and Criminology) received funding from Restorative Justice Services (RJS) to design the RJS Strategic Plan for 2025-2028. RJS is a Community-Based Organisation, funded by the Probation Service to deliver restorative justice in Dublin and the surrounding counties. Threase and Ian delivered three workshops this month with RJS staff, volunteers, board members and colleagues from across the criminal justice and community sectors to explore their goals and wishes for RJS and the actions they think RJS should take to achieve those goals.
Threase and Ian’s work has seen them collaborate on several projects in recent years, combining design thinking and restorative practices to deliver educational and strategic workshops that help people build relationships through dialogue, think innovatively and build consensus. They worked together to design and deliver workshops as part of the CORD Partnership and for a joint summer school at Maynooth University between Mi:Lab and the Restorative Justice Pedagogy Network on communicating restorative justice to the public. In 2024, Threase also led the development of the 2024-2027 Strategic Plan for Victim Support at Court, a charity that provides accompaniment and other support for victims of crime, and of which Ian is a board member.