Restore circles: a cross sector initiative to transform organizations, institutions and communities
The Restore Circles Initiative is an effort to build a shared narrative about the origins, purpose, and application of the circle process in the arduous tasks of transforming institutions and strengthening communities. Circle process emerges as a practice of making, sustaining and evolving community, as a process for community governance, out of a worldview that recognizes our deep interconnection and our interdependent relationship with nature and the sacred. Of late, the circle process was introduced to the conversation about transforming the Western criminal justice system by indigenous communities and is now a ubiquitous practice among restorative, transformative, and healing justice practitioners throughout the United States.
Despite the best efforts of Indigenous, Black, and Brown practitioners, circles have been largely appropriated in restorative, transformational, and healing justice programs and organizations due to a number of factors such as:
0 1. The lack of understanding of the role of elders and teachers in maintaining fidelity with the process;
0 2. A spectrum of ignorance about indigenous philosophies, values, and ethics that are the underpinnings of the process; and
0 3. A stubborn and discriminatory undervaluing of communities and their roles in transforming institutions mandated to be in service to those very communities.
The Restore Circles Initiative is the result of an existing collaboration of circle practitioners seeking to create a structure of support and accountability for those who see the power of circles in the effort to transform institutions and strengthen communities.
This group of practitioners is bonded by shared understandings of the process, practices, lived experiences, and deep decades long relationships. The Restore Circles Initiative includes Phil and Harold Gatensby of the Tlingit people in the Yukon Territories and who are credited with first engaging the criminal justice system in the Yukon Territories with the practice of circles for sentencing processes and that constitutes the very first application of that governance practice in criminal justice in the Western system of justice. Their work has fueled the emergence of circle process as a restorative/transformative/healing justice practice throughout the world. Gwen Jones, a Black leader in St. Paul, Minnesota credited with designing, organizing and implementing the first sentencing process using circles in Minnesota, and many others who, in their own rights, bring significant institutional change and community organizing experience with circle practice in their own local, regional and national networks.
Over the past 20 years, many practitioners have begun to understand the need to connect to Elders and teachers to create relationships of accountability and support in their work with communities and institutions. A deep desire to be in right relationship with this process burns deeply in the hearts and minds of circle keepers and in particular in the hearts and minds of Indigenous, Black and Brown practitioners. It is evident, as restorative justice applications of circles largely devoid of connections to communities, to Elders, and teacher and the cultural/historical/spiritual underpinnings of circles fail, that there needs to be a course correction process to encourage these efforts to be rooted in relationships of nurturance and accountability.
Although there are many consulting firms and capacity building organizations now that seek to build circles capacity, the Restore Circles Initiative, built on over 20 years of practice by multiple circle practitioners, brings a unique contribution to this work in mainstream Western society for two main reasons:
0 1. Its circles model is led by traditionalist indigenous leaders and others who have been supported in their learning by them directly; and
0 2. It targets the learning and implementation needs of practitioners of color and their White team members.
The Restore Circles Initiative is currently in the process of engaging the learning needs of a community of circle practitioners across the United States and who operate across sectors including: public education, higher education, conflict resolution, restorative/transformative/healing justice, philanthropy, alternative economies, prison abolition, organizational development, DEI, indigenous community development, criminal justice, theatre and other arts, etc. Among its hodgepodge national membership are community members, organizational leaders, university staff and faculty, public school principals and others invested in practicing and inviting others into circle practice to learn about values based leadership, collective and collaborative leadership, community governance, and peacemaking.
The Restore Circles Initiative has been hosting weekly meetings engaging 14 practitioners across the United States and Canada, and has hosted two virtual events engaging over 100 national practitioners in conversations about the origins of circles, philosophical questions about the practice, values and ethics education, and racial justice and equity. Although it began as a volunteer project, we have discovered a deep desire and need for this type of programming in order to sustain work being done on the ground and often times under resourced among practitioners of color. We see that there is a need to ensure and stabilize access to these teachings and practices while building shared values, ethics, practices, and visions for institutional transformation and to unleash the governance power of communities throughout the country and the world.
To learn more and connect to this work, please visit our website.
