Finally, the focus shifts to future plans, introduced by the practitioner with the question: ‘How can we take this forward?’ Considering how everyone's needs will best be met, restorative meetings often arrive at creative, healing solutions, which are more likely to be successful because they are suggested, and are being owned by, the people most directly connected with the offence.

The restorative process now opens up the opportunity for repair. The first meaning of responsibility explored in Chapter Seven is accepting culpability: ‘Yes, I admit that I did my part in it, I was responsible.’ The second meaning is being accountable: ‘I am responsible for putting this right.’ This responsibility or ‘ability to respond’ can be expressed through reparation, and it isn't uncommon for spontaneous offers of reparation to be made at this stage in the restorative meeting.

Moving forward

We can't wipe out what we have done in the past – although people who commit crimes often express a wish that they could. Overcoming feelings of guilt and taking responsibility for our actions can be a complex process. A few words of spoken apology may not be able to undo this knot. As one young man said to the person he had offended against: “Sorry isn't good enough.” The entanglements created by crime may be too great, may require more than a word or a phrase – no matter how heartfelt – to release them.

A very concrete step that can be transformative for both sides is reparation. Offers of reparation have melting, gap-closing power, and during the meeting, the practitioner occasionally has to step in to stop the person responsible enthusiastically offering unrealistic sums of money – or all their waking hours – to make amends. Genuine reparation doesn't focus on the self, but on the needs of the other. Reparation can be symbolic or material: a letter, a gift or financial compensation for loss. Practical reparation in the form of a task is particularly helpful, in making concrete that expressed desire to help. A task is tangible, and the person harmed can ‘see’ the extent to which their offender is sorry by the effort they are willing to put in. One person harmed called it ‘doing sorry’; that is, one step beyond ‘being’ sorry. Reparation is physical proof of remorse.