Youth Diversion
559 Bagot Street K7K 3E1 Kingston, ON, Canada

Restorative Justice Week Spotlight on our MEND staff. Today let's meet our second MEND staff Arley Irvine has 10+ years' experience in the RJ field and is one of only a handful of Canadians working as a Mediator of Serious Crime in #CSC's Restorative Opportunities Program. She loves being among trees or next to a wood fire. Check out more about the Restorative Opportunities Program https://www.csc-scc.gc.ca/restorative/003005-1000-eng.shtml Restorative Opportunities ...(RO) is a Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) program that offers people who have been harmed by a crime, either directly or indirectly, a chance to communicate with the offender who caused the harm. RO is a post-sentence program in which participation is voluntary for everyone concerned. The program explores opportunities to use various victim-offender mediation. #RJweek #inspiringinnovation

Restorative Justice Week Spotlight on our MEND staff. Today let's meet one of our MEND staff Joyce Eikre was born and raised in Kingston. She has a passion for empowering people to use their voice and story to create change. She is a certified life coach through Alder Graduate Professional school and a retired lawyer. Look for her feature in Kingston Profile this month. #RJweek #InspiringInnovation

Our Youth Justice Coordinator, Tammy Wright and Youth Justice Caseworker, Gillian Geneja make up the staff component of our Restorative Justice services through our Youth Justice Committee. As staff we intake, assess and learn about the youth who will meet with our YJC members. We also reach out to victims/persons harmed to offer them a voice and place at the table alongside the youth. We spend much of our time trying to build rapport with youth and learn about their acti...ons and behaviours so we can better support them as they try to forge a way forward away from repeating the actions and behaviours which led them to our program. We seek to repair the harm to the victim/persons harmed, to the families, the community and seek to help youth find what they need to progress towards their future goals. Using a Restorative Justice approach focuses on healing of the individuals we work with and the surrounding impacts they have made. Our approach to offences allows for a rehabilitation and restoration approach to offending way from traditional punishment oriented approaches where we segregate and distance a youth from the community they live in. We would never be able to do this without the significant role and support of our YJC members who are dedicated volunteers coming from the community. These volunteers are the backbone to our community oriented response to youth crime and offending. These volunteers are trained and fluent in restorative circle processes to help understand and build a safe space for everyone to be heard and the focus is on healing.

Restorative Justice and our Youth Justice Committee - a little video to show what it is and can do for victims and offenders to better address situations of harm. Our Youth Justice Committee strives to provide these options to youth and their victims in our community so we can provide a chance to seek reparations and reconciliations.