Community and Family

Mark Finnis, of Hull Centre for Restorative Practice, an IIRP affiliateAccording to the netnewsledger.com, on March 26, 2012, Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada hosted:

...a conference on restorative practices [that] brought together community leaders from education, enforcement, health, justice and youth services. Participants learned about what it means to be restorative and how to build a positive culture in our

"Nothing about me without me." —Children and families involved in the FGC/FGDM process.

This new book, published by the IIRP, was written by Beth Smull, Joshua Wachtel and Ted Wachtel

Waves of change have weakened the influence of family in modern societies, yet family remains the most critical element in our social fabric. A new approach for working with families--"family group conferencing" (FGC) or "family group decision making" (FGDM)--seeks to strengthen this fabric by enlisting the collective power of families and their communities of care to address their own issues and solve their own problems. This paradigm has implications for myriad professionals, including social workers, police, court personnel, therapists, youth workers, day-care staff and

Jo Berry, from Lisa Rea interview at Restorative Justice OnlineJean Schmitz, director of IIRP Latin America, sent me a link to this piece he found at RJOnline (originally posted last May). It's a lengthy interview by Lisa Rea of Jo Berry, the daughter of Sir Anthony Berry, a member of parliament in the Thatcher government, who was one of five people killed by IRA bomber Patrick

Illustration of the CenterI've been saving this news for a rainy day, and here it is. This article, "Tribal Justice Center First of Its Kind" by Lisa Kopochinski for Correctional News last September discusses the process the Department of Indian Affairs used to work with Oglala Sioux tribal leaders to develop a new justice and public safety complex on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Architects and builders are

Restorative practices, well known in schools and the criminal justice field, is gaining ground in fields involving the family, higher education and the workplace. Shalem Mental Health Network, which provides counseling services and a variety of community service programs across Ontario, Canada, has launched a program that focuses on transforming conflict and building healthy community in religious congregations.

FaithCARE—Faith Communities Affirming Restorative Experiences — (see www.shalemnetwork.org/?page_id=567) — grew from a two-day retreat in 2007 that explored the possibilities for employing restorative practices in a faith-community context. Following the retreat, the group, including restorative justice pioneers Mark Yantzi and the late Rev. Stu Schroeder, as well as others still involved in the project, formed a steering

Lady Gaga and Oprah During the BTWF LaunchAs reported in a post last month, SaferSanerSchools Instructor Lee Rush was invited along with 80 other national leaders to Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society to help launch Lady Gaga's Born This Way Foundation (BTWF). Held on February 29th, the event was also sponsored by the MacArthur Foundation and drew high-profile names like Oprah Winfrey (who will broadcast part of the event on an upcoming television special), Deepak Chopra,

An upcoming issue of The Prevention Researcher will focus on Restorative Justice. They write:

It has been our observation that many people are still unfamiliar with restorative justice or unsure what it means. Therefore, the goal of this issue is to introduce the topic, show what restorative justice looks likes in school and community environments, highlight the most recent research findings about its effectiveness (for the offender, victim, and community), and provide strategies for creating successful restorative justice programs and policies.

photo by AlecSchueler at Flickr Creative CommonsAn article from the Irish Times discusses the use of restorative justice as one solution to making an impact in terms of dealing with anti-social behavior, and criticizes the use of prisons and the negative impact they can have on offenders.

The lord mayor [of Dublin, Ireland said] there must be “consequences” for how

Here's a sneak peak, so to speak, of a forthcoming eForum article I've written about FaithCARE – Faith Communities Affirming Restorative Experience –  a project of Shalem Mental Health Network in Ontario, Canada. This restorative practices program helps congregations heal from and resolve conflicts in their churches, and also proactively build community and use restorative practices to transform the way people in the church relate and do business.

This podcast interview with Mark Vander Vennen, director of Shalem, begins around minute 1:45, and is a production of ...

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Aboriginal Children in a Canadian Residential SchoolFrom the 1870s to the 1990s, more than 150,000 First Nations, Métis and Inuit children were taken from their families and placed in government-funded, church-run Residential Schools. Aboriginal children were punished for speaking their own language or following traditional cultural practices and suffered emotional, physical and/or sexual abuse; some died. Their unresolved trauma, passed from generation to generation, has had a profoundly negative effect on

"A Family Satisfied with FGDM, from the Famly Voices Video, a co-production of IIRP & American Humane"American Humane has announced its 2012 Conference on Family Group Decision Making and  Other Family Engagement Approaches: June 20-24, 2012 at the Disney Yacht & Beach Club Resort, Orlando, FL

Join over 500 conference participants to enjoy a variety of ways to explore community partnership building, the intersection

Have you read this book? Leave a comment below.

Introduction

Reconciliation and Architectures of Commitment: Sequencing Peace in Bougainville, published September 2010, is a publication of the Peacebuilding Compared Project (http://peacebuilding.anu.edu.au) of the Centre for International Governance & Justice (CICJ) of the Australian National University (ANU), Canberra. The book is the second of three published so far. The first, Anomie and Violence: Non-truth and Reconciliation in Indonesian Peacebuilding, was published in March 2010; the third, Pillars and Shadows: Statebuilding as Peacebuilding in Solomon Islands, was published in November 2010. Links to free downloads of all three books are available at: ...

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Representatives from the Flanker Peace and Justice Centre in Montego BayHere are links to two more articles from Jamaica regarding Restorative Justice Week (Feb. 5 - 11, 2012).

The first – Gov't Committed to Achieving Safe and Harmonious Society – includes photos from the opening of Granville Restorative Justice Centre, one of four new neighborhood centers that opened last

MEREPS – Mediation and Restorative Justice in Prison Settings – was a three-year project funded by the EU.  According to the now freely available PDF Handbook on Using Restorative Justice in Prisons, "The primary objective of the MEREPS project is to identify ways to apply mediation and restorative practices in prison settings, with special regard to providing support to victims and enabling offenders to take responsibility. It also aims to facilitate the resolution of conflicts resulting from a crime between the victim and the offender, and the offender and their environment, including other inmates, with a view to facilitating the reintegration of offenders following their release."

This project involved

IIRP now has a brand new book, Building Campus Community: Restorative Practices in Residential Life. I co-wrote the book with Ted Wachtel, and the introductory chapter was co-written by Stacey Miller, University of Vermont Director of Residential Life, and Ted Wachtel.

Here are a couple excepts from Chapter 3 discussing the special role of the RA and how Restorative Practices can help balance the ideals of being a community leader with the need to also enforce behavioral norms:

Last week I linked to a blog post by Photographer Matt Roth about City Springs Elementary/Middle School in Baltimore and their successful use of Restorative Practices for dealing with safety issues. Today I'm reposting a piece about the Baltimore Curriculum Project, which discusses the history and context of their adoption of Restorative Practices. The original post can be found here.

"We must also propose new ways of life... that means shifting from a punitive mindset to a restorative one."

I'm working on a new eForum article about a program called FaithCARE which applies restorative practices to faith communities and congregations. I've recently had the opportunity to interview Mark Vander Vennen of Shalem Mental Health Network in Ontario, Canada about this project and to talk to Bruce Schenk of IIRP Canada again, who partners with Shalem and has been very active in developing the program.

So it was pleasant to see this piece by Mark which discusses the need for restorative responses in light of a "tough-on-crime" law currently moving its way through the Canadian legislature. I'm reposting the article below, but the original piece can be found in Northumberland Today by clicking ...

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As a followup to Wednesday's post about the upcoming student-led initiative  in Philadelphia - "End Violence Through Restorative Justice" - organized by The Campaign for Nonviolent Schools on Martin Luther King Day January 16, here is a video that recaps last October's Week of Action Against School Pushout. This video highlights how students and members of the community across the country are increasingly speaking out to promote positive alternatives to zero-tolerance policies, including restorative practices. The first three minutes features many youth voices speaking about their experiences. At minute 6:15 mention is made of The Campaign for Nonviolent Schools' Youth Speakout Against Pushout which happened in Philadelphia that week.

"Throughout the week of October 1-8, 2011, thousands of parents, youth, and educators took part in student-led actions and events in 28 cities to expose the school pushout crisis in our nation

In Philadelphia, The Campaign for Nonviolent Schools, a citywide, youth-led campaign, is planning an afternoon event titled Ending Violence Through Schools. Workshops include Implementing Restorative Practices, Interrupting Bias Violence, Creating Nonviolent Schools and Ending the School to Prison Pipeline.

The event takes place on Martin Luther King Day, Monday, January 16th, from 1 to 4pm, at Arch St. Methodist Church, 55 N. Broad St, Philadelphia.  Pre-register for the event here: www.endingviolence.eventbrite.com

Here's a video showing a multi-faceted Restorative Juvenile Justice Project in Peru. People involved in a wide variety of aspects of the project have been interviewed and there's some striking footage of the country. Jean Schmitz, director of the Latin American Institute of Restorative Practices, an IIRP affiliate, appears briefly. This 14-minute video is in Spanish with English subtitles.