I’ve been involved with Bay Area Icarus for over a year now.  In that time, not only have I watched internal conflict and miscommunications tear apart our group, but I have heard many stories from around the country of other Icarus Project groups falling apart over the years due to groups not knowing how to deal with conflict and disagreement. We all want to create a safe and supportive space, but unless we find a way to hold each other accountable and resolve conflict in a respectful way, it seems that we are inevitably just going to keep getting harmed.  If we want to develop long term, sustainable support networks we need to find ways to heal harm done within our communities so that everyone involved can feel respected and heard. 

 

This is where Restorative Justice could be helpful.  RJ principles and practices are intended to create and maintain a peaceful culture within a community.  I am a teacher inside of county jails, where I teach my students about Restorative Justice.  In my classes and at my school we try to use RJ as a tool to build relationships, recognizing that we all have the choice to try to repair harm or further alienate each other.  This past year, as conflict started to arise more and more within Bay Area Icarus, we discussed the need for creating a procedure for resolving conflict in a restorative manner and developing a community accountability process based on Restorative Justice principles. We reached out to restorative justice experts within the larger Bay Area and had some preliminary discussions with members of our group.

 

It takes a lot of time and dedication to follow through on Restorative Justice processes, but in order to work as a community we need to hold each other accountable and address experiences that resulted in harm. We’re hoping to start putting some of these ideas into practice in the coming year here, and sharing what we’ve learned with the greater Icarus Project community.

 

If you’re interested in learning more about Restorative Justice and how it can be used in communities get in touch with me: kathy rose <krose21@gmail.com>

 

Some more info on restorative practices: http://www.transformingconflict.org/Restorative_Approaches_and_Practices...

http://www.restorativejustice.org/