Gael Cochrane

Gael has been a restorative justice facilitator with the Edinburgh Restorative Justice and Hate Crime project since 2020, and also supports the RJ team with mentoring, their RJ CPD and reflective practice. Gael has Advanced Practitioner Certification with the Restorative Justice Council of England and Wales.

 

Gael is a member of the Scottish Restorative Justice Forum, the Scottish Restorative Justice Research Network and she is the Chair of the Scottish Restorative Justice Practitioners Network. Gael is the co-chair of the European Forum for Restorative Justice’s Trainers Committee, and also sits on the Working Group on Gender Based Violence. 

 

As part of her work with the European Forum GBV working group, Gael interviewed survivors of sexual violence who have taken part in RJ interventions, in order to create a booklet for Survivors who may be interested in hearing more about or participating in RJ called "From survivors to survivors: Conversations on restorative justice in cases of sexual violence", which was recently launched. 

 

Gael also (co) conducted research with men who have committed sexual offences about their perspectives on restorative justice. “Restorative Justice and Sexual harm: the voices of those who have harmed” (Russell and Cochrane, 2023).

 

Gael has been involved in the Scottish Trauma Informed Framework since its inception, she has attended consultations, evaluated trauma informed practice training and consulted on training competencies for the trauma framework.

In her other life, Gael works as a Learning Development and Innovation Lead at Community Justice Scotland where she develops and delivers training to the Justice workforce. Gael has been developing educational programmes and delivering training to a wide variety of participants for the past 24 years. Gael has been involved in the development and delivery of restorative justice training for the past 6 years to Justice Social Workers, Police Officers, Prison Officers, Youth workers and workers in the third sector. I have developed and delivered training on Restorative Justice and Serious Harm as well as Trauma Informed Restorative Justice training.  Gael has also co-produced and delivered Restorative Justice and Domestic Abuse training in partnership with Restorative Solutions.