Restorative Circles and Systems

I am traveling regularly to Bainbridge Island, WA where I volunteer for Restorative Bainbridge, www.restorativebainbridge.org.  Restorative Bainbridge is supporting the Bainbridge community and surrounding area to create restorative systems (RS's) for conflict.  I'm excited about the potential RS's have for contributing systemically to all needs being valued and peacefully met, so I'm here to learn and practice as much as I can.  Please find more on Restorative Circles and Systems at www.restorativecircles.org.

"Eric and Katherine were a great team.  They presented a real, humble and inspiring look at a very workable system of dealing with conflict and grievances." ~ Shamus

There is a lot of interest in RS's on Bainbridge Island and the surrounding area, including from the Bainbridge Island Chief of Police, from different school principals and staff, and from a Unitarian Universalist congregation.  We are currently supporting a kindergarten to grade twelve school to set up its RS.  Not surprisingly, the student leaders are taking the lead with setting up an RS system and with learning the Restorative Circle (RC) process. 

There has already been one live RC at the school, and today we found out that we can start talking about conflict and RS's in the health classes!  Last Sunday and Monday we shared a short presentation of RS's & RC's with a Unitarian Universalist Fellowship.  At the end of the presentations we asked if anyone was interested in more training.  I believe I saw everyone put a hand up.  One woman said she was very hesitant about coming to our presentation because the Fellowship's previous efforts to work through conflict had been so painful.  After our presentation, she was hungry for more and wanted to know what the next steps would be.  To top it all off, the Chief of Police wants to support us in any way he can and wants us to train some of his staff. 

There is no funding yet for Restorative Bainbridge, so I am relying on community support and on Patrons of Compassion for housing and other resources in order to contribute as much as I can with Restorative Bainbridge.   I am fortunate that communities in BC continue to support me by bringing me north to give NVC workshops. Please find a list of my upcoming events here.

 Please read more about Restorative Circles and Sytems here.