OP-ED: Even Practice Doesn’t Make Perfect — And That’s OK

On the long drive over I talked with another friend and mentor, Tod Kington, of the Shawnee Conflict Center
in southern Illinois. Restorative Circles include a pre-circle for
facilitators, one that asks what is blocking us from seeing the humanity
of all involved, including the facilitator, and that invites the
facilitator to seek support for carrying out her role.

I expressed my worry and uncertainty. I didn’t know what I was
getting into. I didn’t know many of the people. The authorities might
question my credibility. We had no “real” system in place. He listened
to it all and offered suggestions on how to approach the situation. The
takeaway that I carried through the day was his reminder to stay
connected to my intention and simply do my best.

“John, you are going in there carrying an understanding of what a
restorative response can look like. They are in another system and might
not recognize it. You are listening to the voices of those without
power, and you can speak up and ask questions in a way that can help
bring their needs to everyone’s attention.”

I kept that in the front of my mind throughout the long day. While
talking to the victim, family members, friends, prosecutors, attorneys,
police officers, the man who committed the crime and others I would be
overcome with fear and the realization that I didn’t have all the
answers. The current system is very powerful and presumes a lot of
inherent certainty about what should happen. I was bringing the total
opposite of that.

And it worked, or rather we all worked it out together. Every party
in the somewhat chaotic day was willing to listen to others, to consider
alternatives and to pay attention to the needs of the human beings
involved. No one trumpeted the requirements of the system, or said, “We
just can’t do that.” At the end of the day there was more mutual
understanding and a response to the harm that met at least some of the
needs of all involved. Together we slid the response in a restorative
direction and had a significant impact on what happens next.

 OP-ED: Even Practice Doesn’t Make Perfect — And That’s OK

Sesame Street Robin Williams: Conflict

Moving the Race Conversation Forward is a report by Race Forward: The Center for Racial Justice Innovation that aims to reshape and reform the way we talk about race and racism in our country. The paper includes content analysis of mainstream media (finding two-thirds of race-focused media coverage fails to consider systemic racism), analysis of seven harmful racial discourse practices, and case studies of successful interventions to counteract these trends.

The accompanying video, produced by Jay Smooth, expands in an accessible way on the report's analysis of media's failure to consider systemic racism. Smooth is the founder of New York's longest running hip-hop radio show, WBAI's Underground Railroad, and Race Forward Video & Multimedia Producer.https://www.raceforward.org/research/reports/moving-race-conversation-forward

The Shawnee Conflict Center's first Restorative Practices Leadership Camp.

CMS Leadership Academy from Angela Aguayo on Vimeo.

 Check out the amazing work of these young people from the Carbondale Middle School Leadership Camp! The Camps restorative intention was personal empowerment through identity and storytelling using media, introducing and engaging students in local resources and talents and the Circle as our main vehicle for Dialogue and community building. It’s our local response to the disparities of poverty and the school to prison pipe line. We had an amazing team! Great vision and change are beginning to happen in Carbondale Illinois.

RESTORATIVE JUSTICE ON THE RISE, A RESOURCE FOR THOSE WANTING TO LEARN MORE

Restorative Justice on The Rise is an international live dialogue via Webcast and Telecouncil platform, held weekly, reaching an international constituency of a wide spectrum of invididuals, organizations, professionals, academics, practitioners, stakeholders and beyond. It was founded by Peace Alliance Restorative Justice Fellow and C3 Board Member Molly Rowan Leach in September of 2011. She is Executive Producer and Host.  In its 3rd full season the series provides a live dialogue circle for connectivity, education, action, advocacy and more regarding Restorative justice and the powerful times we are amidst as an old worn-out Prison Industrial Complex dies and punitive paradigms no longer are accepted as appropriate when crime and conflict occur.
The Restorative Justice on The Rise weekly webcast/telecouncil series features global guest speakers from many diverse backgrounds and areas in the field and related fields and has included powerful conversations with equally powerful leaders on community and global levels such as Kay Pranis, Robin Casarjian, Azim Khamisa, Steve Korr, The River Phoenix Center for Peacebuilding, Arun Gandhi, Fleet Maull, Dr. Judith Thompson, Belvie Rooks and Dedan Gills, Lauren Abramson, Dr. Carl Stauffer, Michelle Alexander, Sujatha Baliga, Lois DeMott, Dominic Barter, and so many others doing significant work and sharing their stories.
The Peace Alliance is committed to mobilizing and educating while offering a greater depth of resources in this area and longer term plans include a clickable map for easy access to local, state, national, and global resources in RJ and related fields.
The telecouncil is a service of our collective part in transformation of our systems, and is for you, the people who matter, day to day, as we mobilize and change our world for the better, together. Thank you for your participation in this series, and please consider helping keep it free by contributing any amount, tax-deductible, to The Peace Alliance.
About Your Host, Molly Rowan Leach
Now in its third season and featuring freely accessible archives of over three dozen national and global pioneers in the field, Molly Rowan Leach founded Restorative Justice on The Rise as a response to her own witnessing at an up close and personal level of the devastating effects of the punitive justice system: her own mother has been incarcerated with mental illness for close to 15 years in the State of Idaho. She believes there are many honorable and good people within the Correctional and Law Enforcement systems who would agree and are striving for viable solutions to a broken and inhumane system. Her passion thus is helping bring forward the incredible work happening on every level in our world to integrate Restorative practices and justice into the mainstream. Ms. Leach is inspired also by the global traditions and movements of many on the periphery of societies and those who’ve experienced atrocity first-hand, and practices of the Indigenous peoples of our world, who’ve shown the way over time to help us regain a clarity that Restorative justice is nothing new, but a paradigm, practice, and a very viable systemic method whose time has come once again.CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE.

Witness the magic of diaoluge! "It's somthing that happens between people" " I risk myself when I enter into a conversation"

OPEN DIALOGUE: 74-minute documentary film on the Western Lapland Open Dialogue Project, the program presently getting the best results in the developed world for first-break psychosis -- approximately 85% full recovery, a far majority off antipsychotic medication.