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     Celebrating 25 years of excellence in Restorative Justice • 1985-2010

                      

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CJI’s Restorative Justice based programs include the Victim-Offender Mediation Program, designed to meet the need for healing and closure in people affected by the most serious crimes in the Canadian Criminal Code, Educating for Peacebuilding, a Restorative Action program in Langley schools, and the Restorative Youth Services programs, which take a restorative approach to assisting youth in the local communities of Langley and Surrey. 

EDUCATING FOR PEACEBUILDING

Restorative Action: Changing School Culture

Restorative Action is changing the culture in British Columbia schools. In June 2000, a new partnership was born when the Langley School District #35 (SD35) and Fraser Region Community Justice Initiatives Association (CJI) agreed to work together to explore how Restorative Justice principles might be applied throughout the local school system.  The focus on these principles, which we call “Restorative Action” in the school context, encourages responses to harm and discipline issues that are needs-based and promote healing and accountability.  This initiative grew out of the need to create safe schools through an effective, sustainable approach that does not rely on punishment and isolation to deal with discipline issues. The concept was that Restorative Justice based approaches could give frustrated parents and educators alike additional strategies for effectively addressing misbehavior, the underlying issues responsible for that behavior, and harm that occurs as a result.

To this end, we offer regular presentations and educational sessions about Restorative Action to raise awareness across the school district. In Secondary Schools, we have developed a curriculum called Conversation Peace for students, parents and staff, which prepares the trainees to be called upon when conflict in the school arises. We have trained students and staff at three secondary schools to date and are pleased to see how conflicts are being handled in these schools. In elementary schools, we have offered Restorative Action training and awareness to the teachers, who then bring the teaching to their classrooms. We also have staff from CJI and the school district prepared to respond restoratively to more serious issues that arise in school environments. More recently, we have developed an elementary school resource, Talking Peace which offers an easy-to-use guide for building safer, more respectful classroom environments.

Through all of this, we are aiming for a systemic effect of changing school culture, but in the day-to-day reality, we are encouraged by individual students, parents and educators who are learning skills and changing their worldview one by one. We have often heard students say they liked our training because they are now more able to listen to their friends and show caring and empathy. One secondary student remarked, “My friends say I’m listening to them now. They don’t know what’s happened to me!” An school teacher stated to us, “I never really took the time to listen before without any personal agenda. I was amazed when the person thanked me for listening and said she had better clarity on how to solve her problem…when I hadn’t told her to do anything!” Our goal of culture change will take years of consistent hard work. However, we are encouraged to continue because of individual interactions that reveal how developing a restorative mindset can be life-changing for the individuals and those around them.
 

For more information, download a copy of the program's brochure.
We gratefully acknowledge the generous support of Coast Capital Savings for this program.

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RESTORATIVE YOUTH SERVICES 
 

2004 marked the beginning of CJI's implementation of Restorative Youth Services (RYS) in both Surrey and Langley communities. A combined initiative between CJI and partner agencies Family and Youth Services Society in Langley and Pacific Community Resources in Surrey. RYS consists of three components:

• Restorative Community Service
 Assisting youth to perform court-assigned community service hours in ways that are meaningful to them and to the community.
• Community Capacity Development   
 Developing local resources that provide natural supports and positive attitudes towards youth. Projects include the highly-successful Little Black Book of youth resources.

• Mentorship
 Increasing youth resiliency and success through the provision of supportive relationships and positive role models.

 

SPECIAL PROJECTS


Asset Development Project

Giving children and youth what they need to succeed.


CJI is committed to the positive and healthy development of children and youth. In collaboration with the South Fraser Child and Youth Committee (CYC), we are working to make a difference in the lives of young people in our communities through a two-year project focussd on the 40 Developmental Assets that children and youth need to succeed.


The US-based Search Institute has identified the 40 Developmental Assets as important qualities, values, experiences, and characteristics of children and youth that will enable them to become healthy and successful adults. This positive child and youth development philosophy is gaining great momentum throughout North America, with the goal of diminishing the negative stigmatization of young people, and working towards viewing and treating young people as resources in creating healthier and more engaged communities.

Starting in 2007, CJI formed partnerships with three organizations in the South Fraser Region communities of Surrey, Delta and Langley: Crescent Beach Community Services, the Delta Police Department and the Township of Langley. The goal is to help these organizations develop and implement customized initiatives based on the 40 Developmental Assets. By developing these individualized strategies, we are aiming to integrate the 40 Developmental Assets into community-wide initiatives in each community.


To date, the Asset Development Project has provided training to staff at the three partner agencies. A website is currently under development that will be dedicated to promoting the use of the 40 Developmental Assets to various service providers and community members. The website will give specific examples of ways people can be Asset Builders every day through their interactions with children and youth.


CJI would like to thank the CYC and the Vancouver Foundation for financial support of this project.

Youth Committee Project

Focusing on the development of positive youth initiatives in Langley

 

The Youth Committee Project aims to unify existing youth service organizations in Langley. We are working with the Youth Subcommittee of the Langley Child Youth Committee (CYC) to develop a holistic youth strategy. By identifying already-existing programs and filling gaps in resources, our goal is to ensure comprehensive, high-quality services and resources are available to youth.

 

For this project to succeed, we feel it is important to have youth at the forefront of decisions made regarding youth initiatives in the Langley district, including Aldergrove, Fort Langley, Walnut Grove, Brookswood and Langley City. We believe that direct input from youth living in these communities will result in a grass-roots approach to building stronger, healthier environments for young people to develop into caring, responsible adults. We are bringing them together in Youth Circles to share stories, ideas and opinions about a variety of topics that are important to them. By using the circle process, our goal is to create a safe, respectful environment where youth will fell they are being heard and are making a difference in their own community.

 

We are actively seeking participants in this process. If you are interested in being involved in the Youth Committee Project or participating in Youth Circles, or know youth who would be interested, contact Carly Hoogeveen.

 

This project is funded by the Ministry for Children and Family Development and runs for one year, from June 2008-May 2009.
VICTIM OFFENDER MEDIATION PROGRAM (VOMP)

Based on a foundation of Restorative Justice values, the Victim Offender Mediation Program (VOMP) focuses, at a post-incarceration stage, on remaining accountability, healing and closure issues for those involved in or affected by traumatic criminal offences. While the program can and does involve face-to-face mediation in many cases, the ‘mediator’ is not an intervener but rather a supportive facilitator of therapeutic dialogue. The assessment and preparation processes are therapeutic in nature, and informed by current theory and clinical practice regarding offender treatment and victim trauma recovery.

The purpose of the Victim Offender Mediation Program is to assist people affected by serious crimes by:

  • empowering them to address issues and concerns surrounding the crime and its consequences;

  • providing the parties with a process which can lead to new insight, thereby reducing levels of anxiety, and contributing to therapeutic gains;

  • addressing questions and concerns regarding the offender’s eventual release into the community;

  • providing sensitive staff who are committed to being agents of healing and restoration for those who suffer crime’s effects.

In the years since the VOMP program’s 1990 beginning, both victim and offender participants have consistently reported gains in their own healing, recovery and rehabilitation. Researcher Tim Roberts, in his 1995 evaluation of VOMP for the Solicitor General of Canada, reported that this program had one of the most positive evaluations of any program researched in his 30-year experience: 

“There was unanimous support for the program from all victim and offender respondents interviewed in this study. ‘Support’ means that respondents found considerable specific and overall value in the program, felt it was ethically and professionally run, and would not hesitate to recommend it to others. This level of support is remarkable, considering that VOMP involves parties who are initially polarized, and who could be expected to hold divergent views about the value of the program. VOMP also exists in a polarized political context of offender, victim and feminist advocacy, each of which has legitimacy in itself, and which one might have expected to find voice in at least one or two disappointed participants.”

 
VICTIM OFFENDER RECONCILIATION PROGRAM (VORP)

After more than 20 years, this program has been suspended due to lack of funding. Prior to its termination in July 2004, CJI's Victim-Offender Reconciliation Program was one of the oldest, continuously-operating programs of its kind in North America. While the program is no longer operational, the principles upon which it was based are fundamental to CJI's philosophy and CJI continues to offer training based on the agency's experience.

The idea of victim offender reconciliation had a Canadian genesis. It was the brainchild of Dave Worth and Mark Yantzi, two young Kitchener, Ontario men. The process brings together victims and offenders, and functions to address the facts and feelings in a case from the point of view of each of the principal participants (use this link for information about the VORP process). While there are impressive statistics documenting offenders' completion of the agreements negotiated in these meetings, the primary benefit recorded by both victims and offenders is “the opportunity for the offender to meet the one he or she had wronged” (Gibson, 1986). 

 
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