Springwood's Terry O'Connell is still digesting the news he's been nominated as NSW Senior Australian of the Year.
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The ex-cop and community conferencing pioneer says he's thrilled to be in the company of the three other state nominees - cinematographer and inventor, Dr Jim Frazier; palliative care crusader, Dr Yvonne McMaster and Professor Gordian Fulde, the emergency director at St Vincent's Hospital.
"The award, it's a little surreal and completely out of left-field. The other three nominees are as good as they get," he told the Gazette on Sunday, just 24 hours after returning from an international restorative practices conference in America.
The grandfather of 10 has come a long way from dropping out of school at 14. He went on to spend four years working at Springwood Police Station as a constable from 1972 to 1976 before moving on to the police station in Wagga Wagga.
After 12 years as a cop at Wagga Wagga and studying social work at university, he got the idea of developing a program to get victims and offenders together after family group conferencing was legislated that year in New Zealand.
"It intuitively resonated with me, that family conference approach," the former senior sergeant said.
"I was much more inclined to want to engage young people in dialogue than send them to court.
"I began to change the conversation. As cops we weren't engaging with young people, we were seeing the same offenders. Punishing them was not going to change their behaviour," he said.
"I thought then about how we can help young people make different choices, how their behaviour was impacting others."
He said police districts that went on to use his program almost halved overall crime rates. It's been embraced in the United States, Canada and Britain.
"When it started in Wagga, we made a huge difference in two years. And I began to realise it had much broader applications."
Mr O'Connell, 64, said in the past 30 years some 2000 schools internationally have used his restorative justice program to reduce bullying with great results.
And he thinks his recent nomination hails from that.
"I have a sense it's an ex-principal from an inner city primary school who embraced the practice."
A father of seven, Mr O'Connell said he never wanted anything more from life than to join the police force and "try to improve the lot of others and to build decent communities".
He said he was "executed" by the justice system, quitting the force in 2000 because "the prevailing culture was into control, bullying and above all else suspicion of decent ideas".
But his community conferencing crusade continued and he now works as the director of Real Justice Australia offering people world-wide a new way of thinking about crime and punishment.
His restorative justice model is used to help people in prisons and juvenile justice facilities, victims of crime, school children, families and corporate organisations around the world. It was even used within the police force itself to bring behavioural change.
"None of this has been smooth sailing ... this recognition is less about me and more about family and all the courageous people I worked with who dared to dream."
NSW Award recipients will be announced on Monday, November 16 at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney.
National Australia Day Council CEO, Jeremy Lasek, said the NSW finalists are among more than 120 Australians being recognised.
"The NSW finalists are an extraordinary group of Australians achieving amazing social change by following their passions - we are very proud of all of them," said Mr Lasek.
