Get Involved

Restorative Justice Volunteer Facilitator’s role is to use facilitation skills to keep a safe space while assisting communication between the participants during the restorative justice process and to record negotiated contracts.

• Volunteer facilitators are required to attend a 24-hour training covering the skills and knowledge needed to facilitate restorative justice conferences.
• New volunteer facilitators participate as a community member in a minimum of 2 conferences and then will co-facilitate with more experienced facilitators.
• We ask volunteer facilitators to commit a minimum of one year with our program, which includes attending monthly meeting and trainings, and facilitating conferences.

Two facilitators work together to guide and support participants by providing a respectful environment, facilitating communication, and help the victim, offender and community to understand the harm caused and work toward repairing it:

• Initial and separate pre-conference meetings to prepare for the RJ Conference:
• Lead the RJ Conference which involves affected parties and referring law enforcement officer meeting together to discuss their role in the criminal event, how they have been affected and how harms can be repaired.
• Assist the group in writing the contract for responsible party to complete their RJ referral.
• Facilitators remain neutral parties in the RJ Conference.

Community member participates in the RJ Conference and represents how the crime committed affects our community by:

• Providing support and offering insights on the impact of the crime.
• Holding offenders accountable.
• Suggesting ways for the offender to repair the harm caused by their wrongdoing.

Community Representatives are needed in EVERY community group conferencing. We are always looking for youth (teen) and adult volunteer community members to fill this essential role. Crime does not happen in a bubble. We are all impacted by it – and it is the role of the community representative to express the ripple effect that crime has on a community, thus showing offenders the larger impact of their actions.

• As a community representative, you will be able to voice your opinion and experiences, help offenders repair harm, and tell the offenders how their behavior impacts you and your community.
• Community Representatives who are interested in becoming part of our program are interviewed by the Restorative Justice Office staff and given an overview of what to expect at a Community Group Conference. New Community Representatives are added to our list and contacted when a conference date becomes available. Every effort is made to try to place Community Representatives in conferences that fit their schedule. Conferences typically last 2-3 hours.