Our VAlues
Our values guide the way we move in community and shape our visions of a just future.
- We understand minor acts of harm as fertile ground for interventions that can operate preventatively to reduce future harm and build relationships.
- We are committed to individual and collective liberation—and recognize the two as inseparable.
- We come to this work with a sense of responsibility to work alongside people and communities in a way that cultivates dignity and autonomy. We respect and honor each person’s humanity, seek to understand their stories and circumstances and hold their freedom dreams sacred.
- We approach our work with a sense of joy, creativity, and purpose. We are committed to identifying innovative ways to respond to our community’s needs and expand our collective understanding of what is possible.
- We value our relationships above all. We work at a pace that allows us to build deep trust with our community. We reach out to others for support and direction and communicate with self-awareness, empathy, and humility. Should conflicts arise, we are committed to calling each other in using practices that restore rather than punish.
- We value survivors and others who’ve experienced harm as the authority of their own experiences and needs. We recognize their experiences as vast, complex, and critical to informing nuanced choices regarding justice that heals. We believe that the best possible outcomes occur when we engage all impacted/involved people and communities in processes and decisions that affect them.
- We value and understand the complex, nonlinear nature of healing for those who experience harm and those who cause harm. We work within restorative practices to cultivate their agency, choice, and empowerment in the process.
- We are committed to cultivating the leadership of marginalized individuals and groups, including Black people, people of color, indigenous people, immigrants, women, LGBTQ people, people with disabilities, people involved in the criminal legal system, and people who have loved ones currently or formerly in the criminal legal system.
- We value the collective wisdom of intergenerational experiences and harness the power it brings to our work.
- We believe that social justice work led by and serving BIPOC deserves to be funded, honored, and respected.
- We value the rich diversity of ideas and experiences that each member individual brings and appreciate how our collective wisdom advances the vision of a just world. We value an individual capacity for self-reflection, a disposition steeped in restorative values, and a willingness to cultivate knowledge and compassion.
- We honor individual boundaries, self-reflection, and the need to step back for rejuvenation, restoration, and prioritizing personal needs.
- We believe in the individual and collective wisdom that restorative justice practices and peacemaking curates. We honor the boundaries, reflections, and willingness to craft our own solutions that repair harm in the utmost personal way.
- We value various ways of restorative communication that develop, nurture and maintain safe and healthy relationships.
