Introducing Restorative Practice (12h Online Training)

Introducing Restorative Practice,’ is an entry-level course, available to all school staff, (including senior and middle management, teachers, SNAs and auxiliary staff) and focuses on Restorative Values, Restorative Language and Restorative Conversations. The course, which can be tailored for different organisations, develops the idea that RP is more than a ‘set of questions’ that are used, intermittently, to resolve conflict. The course also explores how RP values can support staff to think more proactively around their daily interactions with students, parents and other staff and the way they operate. There will also be some time spent considering Restorative Circles and Restorative Meetings during the course.

Dates and Times: 

13/04/2026 7-9PM
20/04/2026 7-9PM
27/04/2026 7-9PM
11/05/2026 7-9PM
18/05/2026 7-9PM
25/05/2026 7-9PM

Fee: €20 per person. This fee is non-refundable. 

This is an interactive course with a maximum capacity of 16 participants. To support engagement and collaboration, cameras are encouraged during sessions.

Facilitator: Andy Battell

Living in West Co. Waterford, Ireland, Andy is a father to 4 grown-up children and, with his wife Catherine, fostered 7 children over a 10-year period from 2008.

Andy worked for many years in the 1990’s - first as an NHS Training Consultant in London and South-East England, and then as an independent trainer - devising and delivering non-aversive training to staff and management who worked with people with learning disabilities. He also worked directly with service-users who seriously challenged services; using pro-active approaches to coach and mentor staff.

After moving to Co. Waterford in 1999, he managed the ‘Pathways’ Mentoring Project for Early School Leavers, in Waterford City, County and South Tipperary. Between 2010 and 2017, Andy managed the School Completion Programme (SCP) na Siúire, in Waterford City and South Kilkenny.

Andy has been a restorative practitioner for many years, and in 2010 co-founded the Waterford RP Network. From 2011 – 2017, he was a Certified Trainer, and Trainer of Trainers, with the International Institute of Restorative Practice (IIRP.)

Since 2017, he has been a freelance Restorative Practice trainer, and an RP Quality Specialist at the Childhood Development Initiative, facilitating all their training courses, (including the Training of Trainers,) both face-to-face and online.

Between 2019 and 2021, with CDI, Andy co-devised, delivered and assessed an online Professional Training course - ‘TReP’ (at QQI Level 6) in Restorative Practices, as part of an EU Erasmus+ Programme certified by MCAST in Malta.          

Since December 2022, Andy has also been part of a small Restorative Justice team, in association with Tim Chapman, working with victims/survivors (v/s) of clerical abuse, at Spiritan-run schools in Ireland and abroad; supporting v/s through a restorative process, including, where appropriate, preparing v/s for restorative meetings with the Congregation, and then facilitating those meetings. Andy has also co-facilitated 30 restorative circles with many other v/s.

Andy has been a facilitator with AONTAS since 2018 and a trainer/facilitator with the NPC (National Parents Council,) since 2022.

Since 2012, Andy has tutored apprentices, asylum seekers, refugees, and other adult learners, in various subjects at QQI Level 4, 5 and 6, in Waterford City.

For many years Andy has also facilitated bespoke ‘Team Development' sessions with Schools and Community and Voluntary organisations in the UK and Ireland.