Restorative Justice Collaborative of Washington State.

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It was my pleasure to end the month of September by coming together to begin the Restorative Justice Collaborative.  While our name and mission continue to get ironed out, our general goal it to act as a hub for RJ practitioners across the state.  This is modeled after some of the work done in states like OR and CO.

Working with a great team to bring together a group of amazing people at the Whidbey Is Institute was such a pleasure.  I have to mention that the Institute was gracious enough to support our work in multiple ways.  Thank you to Tom, Dan, and the Institute for your support, interests, and leadership.  We arrived Monday afternoon and spent the first few hours in circle getting to know one another.  I sincerely appreciate how we try to walk the talk, if we think community is important we need to make time in every gathering for people to get to know one another.

I don’t want to go into every detail, so I will just say that we had many opportunities to sit, talk, and share throughout the two days, both as a large group and as small pairs/groups.  It was a pleasure to meet some of them for the first time and find such like minded people from around the state, represented regions included Bellingham, Port Townsend, Spokane, Tri-Cities, Clark Co, and a bunch from the Puget Sound.  We hope to increase our presence across the state and gather those that are IMG_2918doing the work.

Please reach out if you would like to be included in future discussions and gatherings!  We are looking to build teams that are working to support our collaborative, legislative policy, and direct work in a number of fields.

Semper,

Nicholas

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Big Bang Conference

We measure success a number of different ways, but by most measures this conference was a success!  It was wonderful to meet up with long time colleagues from the Seattle area and fantastic to meet up with many new people who will be doing the work of buildiBPL_BB_Logo_Final1ng relationships and creating opportunities for young people to learn and educate themselves!

I can’t wait to travel to NYC, Oakland, Denver, and Boise to name a few places.

The take away for me, relationships.  Both personal and professional are critical for youth success.  As professionals we need to cultivate our relationships in-order to be successful at building relationships with youth.  As we respect youth and hear youth voice in the way we interact with our personal and professional relationships we will be better prepared to encourage youth success.

How are you building your support network?

Semper,

Nicholas

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