Restorative Justice Coordinator Pulling Resources to Safe & Sound
Lauren Thrift, Safe & Sound’s Restorative Justice Coordinator, a Masters Candidate student in SIT’s Self-Designed MA in Intercultural Service, Leadership, and Management program, was interviewed by SIT about her position as Restorative Justice Coordinator with Safe & Sound. Read the full blog article at SIT’s website here: http://blogs.sit.edu/graduate-institute/2011/11/29/voices-from-the-field-sit-student-shares-practicum-experiences-2/
In the blog Thrift states about her position with Safe & Sound’s Restorative Justice Program, “It’s exciting work and I love the Peacebuilding I’m involved in. I believe the path to nonviolence involves helping people humanize with each other through meaningful conversation. Restorative Justice brings people together across cultural boundaries and invisible social lines to communicate their concerns in a non-violent manner and work it out with the help of a trained facilitator.”
Thrift, primarily involved with Safe & Sound’s Circles of Accountability Program and the District Attorney’s Office Community Conferencing Program (CCP), has recently developed a research internship position to assist the CCP.
The internship is focused on developing better evaluation indicators and outcomes for restorative practices in the CCP. The Community Conferencing Program will benefit greatly from the research internship by helping to define what the process is capable of achieving. More specifically, what are the changes in opinions, attitudes and knowledge towards crimes and the impact on direct and indirect victims, and how are Offenders and the Community Member circle participants affected. To learn more about the internship, check out the short video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfC7b9u-Cj4
Lauren is also learning a great deal at Safe & Sound and will be documenting programming processes as well as her achievements. VISTA support is coming to a close next summer and Safe & Sound is exploring ways to more permanently fund the restorative justice program. To read the blog post and find out more about Lauren, her practicum and the internship that is being offered follow the links above.
