For many people, the holidays are an opportunity to come together with family and foster connections and belonging. However, for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault, it can be a time of increased abuse, reliving traumatic past events, and not receiving the appropriate supports for safety.
But there are solutions that can help survivors feel supported, as Carolina Morales explains.
Barbara Schmitz’s early experiences as an attorney helping survivors of domestic violence file for restraining orders opened her eyes to the impacts the carceral systems can have on families looking for emotional or mental health support.
In this essay, Schmitz reminds us of the Indigenous roots of restorative justice techniques and makes the case for using restorative justice models in schools.
Twenty-seven years ago, Devon Gaster was in jail, but had started down a path that would change his life forever.
Devon’s experience healing himself and his family through restorative justice has taught him that being accountable taking responsibility makes it possible to heal and change. With the right tools and support, Gaster writes, men can learn about intimate partner violence and stop their abuse.
The Affordable Care Act has saved countless families with medically complex children, including columnist Jennifer McLelland’s. Her son was born without a functional airway and quickly racked up more than $1 million in medical bills. The ACA protected her family– but these protections are not guaranteed.
For Lisbet Pérez, the restorative justice framework helped her family heal after leaving an abusive relationship. She was skeptical at first, but soon found a way to reconnected with her children’s father.
Through the process, she learned that her family could grow and heal through their own resilience, and that leaning on the support of her community would create the safe environment her children needed.
When it comes to marginalized communities, there’s a historically justified suspicion of formal organizations.
But there are solutions that all groups using restorative justice approaches can implement to be more inclusive.
With the help of a faith-based restorative justice program in Los Angeles I was able to choose forgiveness and find healing for myself and my son.
I made a decision that I was not going to raise my son with hatred. I was going to show him grace in an empowering way. It became my goal to bring about restoration.
Trixie is a young woman in her mid-20s who recently left an abusive relationship with a boyfriend. She came to my workplace, Walnut Avenue Family & Women’s Center, in Santa Cruz, seeking help from our restorative justice program.
What she was looking for wasn’t an accountability process for her abusive ex-boyfriend, but a means of addressing the trust broken by her friends who didn’t believe that the abuse was real.
California and Canada have about the same number of people – 39 million in California, 35 million in Canada. Both jurisdictions legalized medical aid in dying in 2016. Both have similar medical systems.
Yet in 2022, 13,241 Canadians took advantage of medical aid in dying, while only 853 Californians did so. Why the big difference?
The developmental disabilities service system is developing a Master Plan for Developmental Services.
We want to create a plan focused on equity for a community that is as diverse as our state. It should build on lessons learned over many years to create meaningful improvements to the systems that serve our community.