Restorative Justice: What West Virginia is Talking About!
Restorative Justice Week in West Virgina.
Restorative Justice Week is the week of November 20, 2023. As a member of the West Virginia Restorative Justice Project, I am excited to participate in a dynamic one-hour webinar focusing on how West Virginians are bringing restorative justice to their work and their lives in order to build stronger communities. Restorative justice is not a specific program but a group of values and principles. Often, restorative justice employs processes such as talking circles and victim-offender dialogues to increase the restorative potential of dispute resolution.
One-hour Workshop is Action Packed!
The one-hour webinar will begin with a welcome by Federal Court Magistrate Michael John Aloi. I will then provide a brief refresher on restorative justice by examining a factual situation and comparing the questions that restorative justice might ask following wrongdoing with the questions we ask with conventional systems. Nicole A. Bailey will co-present this segment by engaging in dialogue with participants via the Zoom chat.
Having settled into a shared understanding as to what restorative justice looks like, we will be joined by community members from all over West Virginia to share a short snippet about what is going on in their communities with restorative practices in schools, restorative justice talking circles, victim-offender dialogues, and circles of support and accountability. Participants include Cathey Grewe, Parkersburg; Tina Clark, Clarksburg; Nic Cochran, Wheeling; Rosie Hefner, Charleston; Lauren Wadsworth, Lewisburg; Mitzi Sinnott, Huntington; Jeffrey Molenda, Martinsburg.
In addition to sharing initiatives, West Virginians talking about restorative justice are also talking about their questions. We’ll set aside a few minutes to have our burning questions about restorative justice. Lida Shepherd will moderate a mini-panel discussion where we can have questions answered by two faculty members in West Virginia who are well-versed in Restorative Justice: Professor Debra Murphy from West Virginia Wesleyan and Professor James Nolan from West Virginia University.
Figuring Out the Next Steps and Registration for the Webinar
We’ll conclude this hour together by exploring what we need to continue this momentum!
Interested? Register here and receive your link to this free webinar. We’ll also send out a form to send in your burning questions for our panel to answer in the next few weeks.