Restorative Justice Westchester Plans for 2023

• RJW Monthly Meetings will continue on the first Tuesday of the month, 3:30-5 p.m. Please join us

• We will offer our first Spanish RJ Workshop in February.

• We are working with Sleepy Hollow and Bedford on Community Building Circles on Police Reform and Reinvention, to follow up the reports communities prepared in response to former Governor Cuomo’s Executive Order #203.

• We will be offering Restorative Circles in Greenburgh together with Race Talk Revolution and SURJ Westchester

• We will be offering another 5-day RJ training in the summer. Let us know if you are interested!

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2022 Restorative Justice Westchester (RJW) Highlights

• Monthly Community Building: We had 7 gatherings throughout the year to build our community, share about our work and programs, and learn more about Restorative Justice (RJ); plus a fun gathering in December to celebrate all we have accomplished together throughout the year.

• We heard about the impact and challenges of early RJ in Westchester’s Courts from Retired Judge George McKinnis; we were inspired by the outstanding work of New Era Creative Space and the breadth of RJ services Cluster offers; and those of us who participated in the National Conference of Community and Restorative Justice shared insights and resources that we brought back from the Chicago conference.

• RJW organized another successful RJ Training together with Cluster in the summer. We had 16 participants, and lots of support from last year’s cohort. Our community is growing in numbers, experience and depth of practice.

• We have one group who have successfully completed the Mentorship Program. They meet weekly from September 2021 to May 2022. Several participants continue to be engaged in restorative practices and have integrated a restorative approach to their work.

• Many of the 2022 training participants are continuing to master Circle Keeping skills through the Mentorship Program. We’ve been meeting twice a month since September.

• RJW continues to participate in the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office Restorative Justice Task Force.

• We were excited to have our workshop “Eye of the Dragonfly: RP & RJ Models of Abundance in Schools & Beyond” accepted for the National Association of Community and Restorative Justice Conference in Chicago. RJW Co-coordinator Jill Sternberg moderated the panel of RJW members Ridvan Foxhall from New Era Creative Space, Tara Fishler from Creative Response to Conflict, and Kristine Hill from Collective Wisdom Enterprises. We received wonderful feedback about how practical it was; some of the participants said they would implement what they learned as soon as they returned home.

• Other workshops: RJW designed and lead a circle for young people for Peabody Preserve Outdoor Classroom. We helped put together and participated in Race Talk Revolution’s powerful panel on RJ in Schools (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcVR4HRBqS4&list=PLBYWA-_U3WOhPNJvoARPIscqfFkBMZf2u&index=56).

• We are grateful to Westchester Martin Luther King, Jr Institute for Nonviolence for their fiscal sponsorship and for providing RJW with a page on their website (https://www.mlkwestchester.org/rj-westchester)! You can now make tax deductible donations to Restorative Justice Westchester (make checks to WMLKI with RJW in the memo line and send to WMLKI, 250 Bryant Ave, White Plains, NY 10605).