Breakout Sessions
June 25, 2025
Session 1: 10:15am-11:45am
1-A: Courageous Engagement: Reimagining Allyship Beyond Adversarial and Performative Approaches
Parfait Bassalé – Parfait Bassalé Consulting
This workshop challenges participants to move beyond performative and adversarial allyship and embrace befriending as a leadership approach to fostering justice and inclusion. Through guided discussions, reflections, and music, participants will explore how through cultural humility, relational proximity, and collaboration one can dismantle cycles of othering and create lasting trust and inclusion.
1-B: Designing Healing-Centered Justice: A Transformative Approach for Survivors of Sexual & Intimate Violence
Stephanie Burns & Grace Crowley – Healing Courage
Dive into healing-centered, transformative approaches informed by sexual and intimate violence survivors. This workshop will explore Healing Courage’s Consentric Circles, and through relational, vulnerable discourse, we’ll engage in a participatory action research review of survivor wisdom gathered from those conversations. In small groups, participants will apply these intimate insights and their experience and expertise to identify systemic challenges and opportunities for improvement. Armed with our collective wisdom, we’ll explore how to cultivate collaborative spaces that value survivors and create powerful conditions for learning and healing. Outcomes will focus on transforming our culture to reflect survivor-informed approaches that support collective healing.
1-C: Building Restorative School Communities: Engaging Educators, Strengthening Systems, Transforming Outcomes
Wesley Saint Clair, Lian Caspi, Mari Ramirez, Anab Nur, Jabali Stewart & Keiko Ozeki – Seattle Public Schools
This session explores the power of restorative practices in schools, emphasizing relationship-building among educators for sustainable change. Presenters will share insights from Seattle Public Schools’ restorative journey, highlighting key lessons from community initiatives. The workshop covers culture shifts that reduce conflict, proactive problem-solving, and overcoming resistance. Participants will engage in interactive exercises and discussions, gaining real-world strategies for implementation. Emphasizing school-based leadership and sustainability, this session equips attendees with practical tools to embed restorative approaches in their educational settings, even amid systemic challenges.
1-D: Criminalized Survivors: How We Got Here and How We Resist
Priya Nair, Emily Thuma, Tess Abrahamson-Richards, YQ Jiang– Collective Justice, UW
Over the past 40 years, the criminal legal system has been propped up as the frontline approach to address violence. The increasingly punitive orientation has been detrimental to women and queer people marginalized not only by gender, but also by factors such as race, class, sexuality, nationality, and immigration status. As the carceral system grows it continues to sweep more and more survivors into it. Survivors involvement with the criminal legal system is overwhelmingly the result of their trauma, acts of self-defense, lacking funds for legal representation, and not fitting the racist stereotype of the perfect victim. This teach-in will discuss community organizing for criminalized survivors including defense campaigns and mutual aid.
Session 2: 12:45pm-2:15pm
2-A: Embodied Conflict for a World Beyond Punishment (Part 1 of 2)
Briana Herman-Brand – Collective Justice
In this workshop we will explore healing-centered approaches to conflict that are rooted in restorative and transformative justice. Through embodied practice, we will honor our survival strategies while building the skills needed for conflict to be transformative. We will practice how to show up to conflict with mutual dignity, boundaries that take care of ourselves and others, and an embodied presence that makes room for possibility. This will be a highly interactive workshop that encourages participants to explore individual and collective approaches to conflict that can strengthen our communities and movements.
2-B: Just Language: Using Critical Language Awareness to Transform our Thoughts, Emotions, and Actions
Matthew King & Amanda Filloy – Corvallis School District/Matthew King Therapy
Language shapes the way we think, writes linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf, and determines what we can think about. While restorative justice requires belief in the full humanity of all, social structures that should be just often rely on language that reduces the disempowered. The use, acceptance, and standardization of such language plays a significant role in unobtrusively maintaining existing power divides. This interactive presentation will promote ways to analyze and disrupt harmful linguistic patterns found in both public and private professional settings. It will further incorporate research and insights from the world of cognitive behavioral psychology regarding the relationship between our language, thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, with the goal of transforming the culture of our workplaces and communities into more just spaces.
2-C: A Framework for Implementing a Restorative Approach in Complex Organizations
Matthew Hartman – Just Outcomes Consulting
A restorative approach provides a powerful framework for transforming organizational culture and fostering healing. This session explores a phased approach to implementation, covering leadership engagement, assessment, design and development, and execution. Drawing from the Restorative Justice in Youth Corrections guide, we will examine how these strategies can be adapted to any complex institution, from schools to corporations and public agencies. Participants will gain a practical roadmap for navigating systemic challenges and embedding restorative principles into their organizations, cultivating environments rooted in dignity, belonging, and adaptability.
2-D: Searching for Redemption 40 Years Later – The Need for Restorative Justice Beyond the Criminal Justice System
Vu Pham, Mindy Johnston & Theresa Huggins – Lutheran Community Services NW
Vu Pham, a local filmmaker and harmed party, in collaboration with LCSNW’s Transformative Justice & Healing Department, will share about his journey to engage in a restorative justice process related to the murder of his mother 40 years ago. He will share about his journey through this process, and the program will share other anecdotal information about why we need to support more expansive restorative justice efforts.
Session 3: 2:30pm – 4:00pm
3-A: Embodied Conflict for a World Beyond Punishment (Part 2 of 2)
Briana Herman-Brand – Collective Justice
In this workshop we will explore healing-centered approaches to conflict that are rooted in restorative and transformative justice. Through embodied practice, we will honor our survival strategies while building the skills needed for conflict to be transformative. We will practice how to show up to conflict with mutual dignity, boundaries that take care of ourselves and others, and an embodied presence that makes room for possibility. This will be a highly interactive workshop that encourages participants to explore individual and collective approaches to conflict that can strengthen our communities and movements.
3-B: The Digital Accessibility Transformation: Making Your Engagement Accessible to All
Audrey Zunkel-deCoursey – City of Portland
Accessibility addresses the social brokenness manifested by inaccessible, exclusive spaces and communications. Supporting equitable relationships among individuals and between individuals and organizations is what accessibility is all about.
This workshop will introduce digital accessibility, to support websites and electronic communications that welcome all. We will walk through worldwide accessibility guidelines and best practices to meet accessibility standards. From heading hierarchies to alt text to color contrast, we will cover the basics of what you need to know to reach more audiences. Understanding digital accessibility is helpful to RJ practitioners in expanding their outreach and engagement, especially if they work with government agencies that must meet ADA compliance.
3-C: Rewiring the Body: A Somatic Circuit for Restorative Practice
Sophia Solano – Conflict Artistry, LLC
This session will offer participants an alternative internal pathway for strengthening and harmonizing mind-body connections in preparing for restorative practice. By allowing ourselves the opportunity to slow down and intentionally reroute information streams, we can transform our experience of self, others, and community cohesion. Together we will explore a sequence of somatic exercises that can enhance our ability to listen, to connect, to regulate our nervous system, and to respond restoratively to discomfort or tension that may arise.
3-D: Accountability & Healing Through Surrogates: Exploring the Role of Surrogate Victims in Restorative Justice
Justine Craig, Mindy Johnston & Theresa Huggins – Lutheran Community Services NW
This 90-minute workshop offers an in-depth overview of the role of surrogate victims in restorative justice practices. For victims who are unable to directly engage in restorative justice processes due to death, unavailability, or other reasons surrogate victims can step in to represent their voice, story, and needs. This session will explore the benefits and challenges of using surrogate victims, as well as the support and healing that these individuals experience in sharing their personal narratives. A special guest, a harmed party who has acted as a surrogate in our restorative justice processes, will share her own story and reflect on the profound impact this experience has had on her healing journey. Participants will gain a deeper understanding of how surrogate victims can foster accountability, empathy, and transformation in restorative justice, while also exploring the emotional and ethical complexities involved.
June 26, 2025
Session 4: 10:15am-11:45am
4-A: Expanding Our Inner Capacity
Scott Smith – Neighbor 2 Neighbor
A teaspoon of ink added to a glass of water darkens it completely; the same ink added to a small lake barely changes it. In order to keep doing our work and stay deeply engaged in the health of our communities, we need to be able to stay present and clear while receiving lots of hard news and painful stories. This workshop is a sampler of a few modalities that: free us from stuck perspectives; develop our inherent calm spaciousness; offer clear steps for rebalancing when we need it; and can be done without professional support or training. Modalities introduced will include The Work of Byron Katie, Internal Family Systems, and written self-facilitation of inner restorative justice dialogue. While having meditative components, these are all language-based tools, different from the more somatic or artistic self-care and growth experiences that may also be offered at this conference.
4-B: HEALing is how the Magic Happens
Cassandra Butler, Guadalupe Vidaurri, Dolphy Jordan & Anthony Wright – Collective Justice
Mass incarceration deeply impacts our communities, often in unseen ways. Many endure in silence, mistaking survival for resilience. This workshop challenges that narrative, exploring how restorative and transformative justice can heal intergenerational trauma and systemic oppression. Collective Justice’s Healing Education for Accountability and Liberation (HEAL) circle strives to build a supportive space for deep healing and accountability for our incarcerated community, and is rooted in transformative, restorative, and healing justice. In circle, there is an invitation and intention to practice skills in holding space, unearthing root causes of trauma and harm, strengthening and deepening relationships, and fostering collective care. HEAL is the first program of its kind in Washington State and launched in 2017 at Washington State Reformatory. For the first time since 2020, we are gathering back inside, and we want to share our stories with you. Join us as we come together in reflection and connection, embracing the belief that stories are medicine.
4-C: Conveying the Power of Restorative Justice
Tristen Edwards – Metropolitan Public Defender
This workshop will feature videos created by the Restorative Justice Coalition of Oregon to support the coalition’s legislative advocacy work and help convey the power of restorative justice to decision makers with minimal familiarity with the concept. The workshop will also focus on advocacy strategies generally to help people develop tools for explaining restorative justice and emphasizing its importance in helping people who have been harmed, reducing our reliance on incarceration, and creating a safer society.
4-D: Healing and Accountability in the Aftermath of Serious Harm
Matt Kama’aina, Priya Nair, Dolphy Jordan, Stacy Torres & Briana Herman-Brand – Collective Justice
We will share about the Dialogue and Accountability Processes (DAPs) we facilitate with both survivors of harm and those responsible for harm. DAPs are a voluntary, in depth, and formal attempt to respond to a specific harm that involves a facilitation team, support people, and a designed plan for accountability and healing. We will dig into questions of what survivors need to heal, what those responsible need in order to be accountable, and what repair can look like for all involved.
Session 5: 12:45pm-1:45pm
5-A: Current Challenges and Opportunities Within Our Juvenile Legal System
Jimmy Hung & Judge Veronica Galvan – King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office
The King County juvenile justice system seeks to change the status quo and set a national standard for progressive and innovative approaches to handling juvenile cases. Prosecutor Jimmy Hung has been an innovative leader in the restorative justice movement. Judge Galvan will share how the court system is evolving, its impacts, and how judges can continue to serve as leaders for restorative justice. Amongst the programs to be discussed are the rehabilitation and reintegration of juvenile offenders, and the handling of juvenile offenders by the communities. These leaders will share their journeys in this work and review a case study.
5-B: Restorative and Transformative Justice within School Safety and Prevention Systems and Behavior Safety Assessment: A Statewide Project
Danica Jensen Weiner – Oregon Department of Education Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: Safe and Inclusive Schools
The Oregon Department of Education and statewide partners will advance a theoretical framework for restorative and transformative justice and orientation toward school safety. This framework posits that culturally responsive and trauma-informed behavioral safety assessment systems integrating transformative and restorative practices will address the continuum of student mental and behavioral health needs from individual crisis response and recovery to whole school culture and climate interventions. This statewide project aims to develop and implement the Oregon Model of Behavior Safety Assessment for schools, districts, Education Service Districts, and county-based multidisciplinary teams. It focuses on restorative and transformative justice in school culture and climate, as well as the process of behavior safety assessment (formerly known as student threat assessment) to reduce and eliminate disproportionate disciplinary outcomes and focus on connection, healing, and support rather than exclusion and stigmatization. This project addresses prevention, intervention, re-entry strategies, and a team approach to managing risk while supporting students, families, caregivers, and the community.
5-C: Art as Release: Channeling Grief Through Creative Expression
Sandra Hunter – Owner, empowerHER
To effectively implement strategies to be rooted in identity and be self-empowered, people often need a deeper, more holistic approach to release the decades or even generations of grief they carry. Art as Release: Channeling Grief Through Creative Expression is a workshop designed to help participants process their grief through creative outlets: writing, drawing, or a phone-generated reel. With guidance from a reflective prompt, they craft a personal piece that captures their emotions in the moment. The workshop concludes with a supportive sharing session, offering judgment-free, heartfelt responses to their work.
5-D: Supporting Meaningful Restorative Practice in Schools
Darren Reiley & Heather Edge – Lane County Center for Dialogue and Resolution
Restorative Justice continues to garner interest from schools and districts trying to find alternatives to exclusionary discipline practices. However, with a holistic view of long-term implementation strategies, and without strong strategies for building a relationship culture in schools, these efforts sometimes prove counterproductive. This session will explore some promising practices.