Seeing Ourselves in Community

This handout summarizes some key understandings gathered in almost two decades of living conflict in community, observing the development of Restorative Circles, their facilitation and the systemic contexts that support them. It includes brief notes of an emergent theory of conflict, stages in the restorative accompaniment of such conflict and guiding questions to serve as a basis for those offering facilitation of this accompaniment. It begins with suggestions on how communities and organizations can create the founding agreements upon which a restorative practice can arise and be sustained.

We don’t presume your discoveries will be the same as ours. Please question and test out what you read here. As you engage with this work, we welcome ongoing contact and a flow of learning and feed back. You can find us at Circles, @RestoraCircles on Twitter and

Seeing ourselves in community

Community is not primarily made up of those with whom I identify but those with whom I divide resources (material and affective) with whom I share risk, with whom I persist.
Conflict is feedback within any system (organism, relationship, organization, society…) that seeks to preserve its state, informing us that something has changed. I am in community with those with whom I am in conflict.
Conflict increases its volume to compensate for the perceived distance between those who are party to it. Security increases when we walk towards conflict.

Nurturing the restorative flame of our communities

Relationships include an organized response to conflict – a justice system , inherited if not consciously chosen.

What do we currently do when conflict becomes painful that works well?
What do we currently do that doesn’t work quite so well?
How do we dream it could be?

Preparing to co-create a compassionate justice system

Self-care and planning for sustainable engagement

Seek out and agree on your sources of support. Connect with those whose experience or empathic understanding can support you in defining and persisting in living the principles of nonviolence at every stage.

Define your resources and the reach of your community. Balance the size of the system you intend to co-create with resources of time, energy and collaboration you have available. Prioritize quality & measurable outcomes.
Identify and nurture the flame of restorativity that is particular to this community. Distinguish between local restorative forms (and dreams of how things could be) and what has worked elsewhere, in the past.

Setting up a restorative system

Preconditions of a Systemic Context for Restorative Practices

Identify and engage sources of power within the community. Reach agreement within the community on the use of restorative practice as a way of handling conflict.
Identify a space where the practice will be held. Consider the symbolic aspects of the space (history,location, associations…), the participants’ comfort and ease, and external sources of noise and interruption.
Develop willingness and resources necessary to implement the practice. Learning, support, coordination.
Ensure basic information on the system is widely available within the community. Communicate.
Develop a means to initiate the restorative practice that is available to all. Seek means that highlight that the decision to respond restoratively belongs to those experiencing the conflict.

Maintaining and strengthening a Restorative System

Developing the community engagement and systemic context for Restorative Circles and/or the restorative practices

Identify, name and make visible the disregarded or denied imbalances of power and structural conflicts within the community or organization. Highlight and respond restoratively to the painful expressions of relationships and social structures that have become normalized and acceptable to some or all.
Ensure rules, agreements, laws are responsive to - rather than mandate – issues that come up in the restorative system. Develop codes of conduct that serve preventatively as summaries of Action Agreements.
Investigate how neighbouring interdependent social systems –in areas such as education, economics, family, politics etc. – impact and are influenced by restorative justice systems. Experiment with applying restorative principles to neighbouring systems.
Follow the wider question of justice into our relationships with life in all its manifestations and coexistence between species. If justice is balance in coexistence, and all that is animate is in dialogue, how does justice relate to life at the edges of, and beyond, the human?
Observe the functioning of our inner justice system, as it responds to our way of being in the world. Look at yourself restoratively and track both the possible disorientation and the experiential and behavioural outcomes.

Considerations

Demonstrating the values that guide Restorative Circles as you set up and maintain your system

At every state we have a choice between our ideas about the process and the people in front of us. Bringing our attention to those we are with us and the ideas that come from the connection with them, rather than our preconceived ideas, allows the process to emerge in unique, local ways.
The efficacy of the process is in the precision to its distinctions. The value of Restorative Circles lies in the accurate use of the process, the questions and the dialogue dynamic.
The process is designed to accompany, not to suppress conflict. A Restorative System welcomes, engages with and listens to conflict – for the wellbeing and growth of the community.
Be a good neighbour. The fields of Restorative Justice, conflict resolution/ Alternative Dispute Resolutionand personal, interpersonal and community care engage a great many people with unique contributions. Seek out colleagues and projects for partnership. Dialogue with choices that differ from yours. Offer alliance.
Be a student of the craft.

Facilitation of RC

Make inner connection and connection with a co-facilitator to support you.

Make connection with the community and with the specific conflict.

Schedule Pre-circles and Circle.

Restorative Questions in their didactic form.

These questions are intended as a guide for you as you begin to offer facilitation of Restorative Circles. It is recommended that you use the questions as described below for at least your first 20 Restorative Circles, until their logic is clear to you in the context and can be freely and precisely be adapted to the people and situation at hand.

Pre-Circle

Intention: clearly identify the symbolic act in a single sentence.

Guide form of question for initiator of restorative process: “What was said or done that you ‘d like to bring to a Restorative Circle?
Some possible colloquial adaptations: “How are you?” “What happened?”” Why are we here?”
Guide form of question for succeeding participants: “What was said or done that lead you to be invited to this Restorative Circle?”
Intention: empathically connect to the current experiences of those you are with, in their terms and language.
While there is no specific way to do this, nor necessarily any need to engage verbally, a guiding form for questions might include sharing the meaning you understand the act has for those you’re with by checking the current underlying values or needs you hear them express. This may also include the attendant feelings, thoughts and images you understand them as having while they’re there. Verbally check your understanding if in doubt or requested by the participant(s). Seek less to “hear accurately” or understand cognitively than to be touched and changed by what is shared.
Intention: confirm informed consent to participate.
Review the process offered: basic stages, dialogue and key principles (see box)
Ask: “who needs to be there?” Invite them to name participants, rather than social roles).
Check: “Would you like to go ahead?” Reach understanding and agreement on their reply.

Facilitators Pre-Circle

Identify the idea: what idea or ideas are you having about yourself, the process or the other participants that diminishes your ability to focus on the humanity of everyone involved?
Understand the meaning: Connect to the underlying needs or values stimulated in the facilitator related to his/her ideas, feelings, thoughts and images. Verbally check your understanding if in doubt or if requested by the facilitator. Seek less to “hear accurately” than to be touched and changed by what is shared.
Confirm willingness to participate:
“As you look at the steps that you’re going to take, is there anything that comes up for which you think you’ll want support?”
“Do you know what you want to do to arrange this support?”
“Would you like to go ahead?” (Reach understanding and consensus)

Dialogue Process uses in the Circle

Used mostly in the mutual comprehension and Self-Responsibility phases

One person addresses another (having been asked a question verbally or not)
The person addressed expresses his understanding of the meaningof what is said
The original speaker confirms or corrects this impression
The original speaker adds more (in response to a question or not)
The process continues until the original speaker registers the change in understanding

Some guiding questions for facilitating this might be:

“What did you hear him/her say?” or: “What is the essence of what you heard him/her say?”
“Is that it?” and then: “Is there any more?”

Circle

Mutual Comprehension

Intention is to rehumanize each other in the present

“What would you like known, and by whom, about how you are right now in relation to the act and its consequences?”

Self responsibility

Intention: to retroactively rehumanize each other in the past

“What would you like known, and by whom, about what where looking for at the moment you chose to act”?

Agreed action

“What would you like to see happen next?”(What would you like to offer? What would you like to request?)

Post Circle

Intention: accompany the evaluation of the well-being of the participants after the Circle,

“What would you like known, and by whom, about how you are now in relation to the Action Plans and their consequences?”

In response to the replies, use the dialogue process to support participants in discovering which of the following scenarios are most accurate for each relationship:

Where actions have been carried out, or not, and needs met to mutual benefit:
Facilitate expressions of gratitude
Where actions have been carrie out and needs not met to mutual benefit:
Re-signify actions in terms of needs they sought and failed to meet

(“What were you looking for when you did what you did?”)

Where actions have not been carried out and needs are not met to mutual benefit:
Facilitate understanding of needs met and unmet by choices made

(“What were you looking for when you did what you did?”

Planning (“What would you like to see happen next?”)

“Translation”

This is the only procedure parallel to the above questions that we have found useful in facilitating. It may “unlock” the dialogue process in moments when participants agree to stigmatizing thoughts or limiting conclusions about themselves and/or each other, rather than using ideas as shorthand. It may also support communication when participants miss aspects of meaning being shared with each other. For each of these two scenarios it is used slightly differently.

•If a stigmatizing or limiting belief is agreed to by both parties in dialogue – in words or meaning – and the question “Is that it?” is answered in the affirmative, the facilitator may interject in the following way:

He turns to the listener and says: “I heard something a little different. I heard….. (words or phrases that summarize the belief exchanged on the level of general principles, that is, without reference to specific people of actions).
As these words that replace the italics above are uttered, the facilitator will look at the participant who expressed the belief. Through eye contact or the question “Is that accurate?” he is checking whether the translation is accurate. The participant will usually confirm or correct the summarized understanding.
Next turn back to the listener and ask: “What did you hear now?”

•If something is expressed – in words or action – and its meaning is not (in the guess of the facilitator) fully received by the person to whom it was addressed, the facilitator may interject in the following way:

He turns to the listener and says: “I heard something else as well. I heard….. (words or phrases that describe the expression in terms of universal needs or values).
As these words are uttered, the facilitator will look at the participant who expressed the belief. Through eye contact, or the question “Is that accurate?” he is checking whether the translation is accurate. The participant will usually confirm or correct this understanding.
Next turn to the listener and ask: “What did you hear now?”.

“Substitution”

To increase the degree of voluntary participation, while ensuring that Restorative Processes are not inadvertently vetoed by such choice, we can substitute participants (authors, receivers or community) who decide not to take part. Substitution is also useful when someone is unable to participate for other reasons.

•When in the Circle, the person who acts as substitute does the following:

Listens for the underlying universal motivations for action in what others articulate, regardless of the words used;
Listens as if he had made the choices that were made by the person for whom he is substituting, whether this person is author, receiver or community;
Articulates his motivations for action – now and in the (imagined) past – in ways more likely to be heard by al present as expressions of universal values;
Communicates with brevity, authenticity, simplicity and precision;
Tracks meaning.

•To support people to be able to do the items listed above, those substituting are recommended to have considerable experience of Restorative Circles. Preferably they have experience offering facilitation and of being, at different times, author, receiver and community.

•It is recommended that you assess honestly whether there is anyone available within your community to offer effective substitution and that you offer this as an option in your system only when you believe that there is.

•Like in a game of soccer, the substitute does not pretend to be the person he is replacing. The substitute occupies the position on the field, not the person who would otherwise be there.

•Substitutes do not enter into Action Agreements, beyond optionally agreeing to participate in the Post-Circle.

Substitution is a specific procedure. It is distinct from using a “surrogate” from an unrelated event.

Semi-simulated Circle Practice

Semi-simulated circles offer the opportunity for facilitation practice. They can provide valuable learning for all participants in all places in the Circle. While some healing of insight may occur for participants, the practice is designed primarily to support the learning of the craft of facilitation.

Work with a group of 4 or more. Use a conflict that is live and active for one member of the group. Focus on the practice of facilitating, rather than on accompanying someone in a live conflict, is supported by using a conflict that does not involve anyone else in the room.
The person practicing facilitation holds a Pre-Circle with the participant for whom the conflict is live. In the Pre-Circle they identify a single act, describable in one sentence. It can be helpful to identify an act in which the participant is the “Author” or the “Receiver”. If the most meaningful act to start with is one in which the person bringing the live issue is “community”, check that the conflict has enough energy to sustain focused engagement.

Fictional names can be used for other parties, if desired, with each clearly defined as “Author”, “Receiver” or “Community”.

In the Circle, participants suspend disbelief, such that it is natural to respond - without imitation of any falsity – as themselves, but as if they had participated in the chosen act. Focus on the practice of facilitation is supported by staying with the flow of the Circle rather than focusing on how “true” the participants are to “real life”.
Use the process through Mutual Comprehension, Self-Responsibility and Agreed Action. When continuing on to Agreed Action, be aware that no Action Plans made are presumed to be carried out by participants.