Benefit concert Saturday evening

Please join us this Saturday, November 14th at 7:30 p.m. at Salem Zion Mennonite Church for an evening of music, fellowship and support.

The concert will feature performances by the Freeman Academy Concert Choir

Freeman Academy Concert Choir

USF Chorale

and the University of Sioux Falls Strings and Concert Chorale.

Ted and Pat Nelson, special guests of Restore, will also speak briefly about their experience of reconciliationwith the man who murdered their son in 1995. Learn about their story in our Video Links section (Forgiving the Unforgivable, produced by the ELCA news service.)

A free-will offering will be taken to support the programs of Restore.

Salem-Zion Mennonite Church is located at 27844 443rd Avenue in Freeman.

God comes to us …

disguised as our life.

Training Friday and Saturday

Victim-Offender Mediation Training offered this weekend.

Our last training class was held in August 2009.

Restore will hold a new victim-offender mediation training on Friday, October 30th from 6-10 p.m. and concluding on Saturday, October 31st from 8:30 to 4:30 p.m.  Sessions will be held at East Side Lutheran Church, 1300 E. 10th Street in Sioux Falls.  The training workshop will also include an introduction to the approach to crime and conflict resolution known as restorative justice.

When individuals break the law they harm their victims, society, and themselves. Restorative justice is about healing and addressing wrongs that have been committed and repairing the relationships in the community.

This two-part training will apply the principles of restorative justice to prepare participants to facilitate structured dialogues between selected juvenile and/or adult offenders and their victims. These dialogues offer a crime victim the opportunity to explain how he or she has been affected by a crime and to ask the offender questions like, “Why me?” and “Will you do this again?” Participation empowers victims, offering them closure and providing peace of mind.

The cost is $50 which covers all course materials, supplies and a light lunch at the Saturday session. For those who are selected and who are interested in serving as volunteer mediators in the program for at least six months, $25 may be refunded.  Training scholarships are available.

Pre-registration is required. Registration forms can be downloaded here.  Call Restore 605-338-6020, or send an e-mail to restore-sd@sio.midco.net

A challenge

I’m listening this morning to the slew of financial statistics–housing starts, unemployment rate, bank closings, those without health care, bankruptcies, houses in foreclosure….

It seems to me that restorative justice needs to come up with an index of its own:  one that marks the measure of social justice.  Are we moving closer or further away from our goal of less reliance on prisons, improving social relationships in our communities, looking at how well or how poorly alternatives to incarceration are funded?  What is the ratio between expenditures on prisons vs. what we spend on schools?  What is the ratio of crime to poverty?  Number of dispute resolution programs to police officers?

If we were able to construct such an index, what measures would we want to include?  What ratios would make sense?  Could we measure it over time?  Might we use it to show our policy makers where we might redirect our capital–from economic to social?  There is the well-known Misery Index that has been around for a long while.  Perhaps it’s time to develop a Justice Index.  Then again, the two might be related.

What variables should we include?  Some initial thoughts:  ratio of prison spending to education… percentage of gated communities compared to low-income housing … incarceration rates v. those without healthcare … social distance … social capital …  As a sociologist, this makes me think.  Things are not static. This gives me hope.  We need something by which to measure our progress. Whereas people may not understand abstractions or theories, they do understand numbers.  With 14,000 people a day losing health care coverage, just under 500 folks are now on their own in the time it took to write these words.  But then again, who’s keeping score…?

Mediator training

Announcement

October mediation training

R E S T O R E, Inc. (formerly “VORP”, the Victim-Offender Reconciliation Program of Southeastern South Dakota) will hold a second “Introduction to Restorative Justice and Victim-Offender Mediation Training on Friday, October 30th from 6-10 p.m. and concluding Saturday, October 31st 8:30 to 4:30 p.m.  Sessions will be held at East Side Lutheran Church, 1300 E. 10th Street in Sioux Falls.

The cost is $50 which covers all course materials, supplies and a light lunch at the Saturday session. For those who are selected and who are interested in serving as volunteer mediators in the program for at least six months, $25 may be refunded. Training scholarships are available.

Training will be facilitated by experienced mediators, and led by Dr. John Gehm, former Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of South Dakota and the Director of RESTORE. Gehm has been a researcher, mediator and trainer for over 20 years.

Grounded in restorative justice, the training draws also from transformative model of conflict resolution refined by Baruch Bush and Joe Folger in The Promise of Mediation in 1994. Participants will leave the training with an understanding of “the language of conflict,” approaches to resolving conflict which recognize and empower all participants, and the skills, techniques and confidence which will enable them to serve as volunteer mediators in the victim-offender mediation program through RESTORE, if desired. The training is open to the general public, including youth and elders. No prior mediation experience is required, just an interest in learning more about peaceful solutions to conflict and opportunities to apply it. 

Registration Form August 2009. Visit our website and fill out a contact form.  Call RESTORE at 605-338-6020.  Or send an e-mail to  restore-sd@sio.midco.net. Participation in both sessions is highly recommended, although not mandatory.  If you have a conflict, please contact the director.

New Training

Announcement

October mediation training

R E S T O R E, Inc. (formerly “VORP”, the Victim-Offender Reconciliation Program of Southeastern South Dakota) will hold a second “Introduction to Restorative Justice and Victim-Offender Mediation Training on Friday, October 30th from 6-10 p.m. and concluding Saturday, October 31st 8:30 to 4:30 p.m.  Sessions will be held at East Side Lutheran Church, 1300 E. 10th Street in Sioux Falls.

The cost is $50 which covers all course materials, supplies and a light lunch at the Saturday session. For those who are selected and who are interested in serving as volunteer mediators in the program for at least six months, $25 may be refunded. Training scholarships are available.

Training will be facilitated by experienced mediators, and led by Dr. John Gehm, former Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of South Dakota and the Director of RESTORE. Gehm has been a researcher, mediator and trainer for over 20 years.

Grounded in restorative justice, the training draws also from transformative model of conflict resolution refined by Baruch Bush and Joe Folger in The Promise of Mediation in 1994. Participants will leave the training with an understanding of “the language of conflict,” approaches to resolving conflict which recognize and empower all participants, and the skills, techniques and confidence which will enable them to serve as volunteer mediators in the victim-offender mediation program through RESTORE, if desired. The training is open to the general public, including youth and elders. No prior mediation experience is required, just an interest in learning more about peaceful solutions to conflict and opportunities to apply it.

Registration Form October 2009. Call Restore 605-338-6020.  Or send an e-mail to  restore-sd@sio.midco.net. Participation in both sessions is highly recommended, although not mandatory.  If you have a conflict, please contact the director.

News release

The Democratic Forum speaker on Friday, October 9, will be John Gehm, Director of Restore, Inc.

Restore is a nonprofit organization operating programs which emphasize victim healing, offender accountability, community involvement, and opportunities for the justice system to address certain types of cases differently. One of the programs, victim-offender mediation, uses trained, volunteer mediators from the community who facilitate face-to-face meetings between victims of crime and the offender. Gehm earned his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Notre Dame. He has served as a consultant with the National Institute of Corrections. Before becoming director of Restore, he taught for over 14 years at the University of South Dakota as well as briefly at the University of Sioux Falls. He will talk about the issues facing corrections today and how restorative justice programs have made a difference in communities across the country.

Democratic Forum is held every Friday at the VFW, 3601 S Minnesota.  The meeting begins at noon. Lunch is optional; a simple menu is available. All are welcome.

Advanced training update

Dates and times are reserved for Advanced Mediation Training. It will be held in the same room upstairs in East Side Lutheran Church. Tuesday evening, October 6th and Monday evening, October 12th both from 6-10. You can go to either one. You don’t have to go to both. If you attended the Introductory Training on August 14-15, you do not need to pay any additional fees.

You must have attended the Intro training to be eligible for the advanced. Early notice is required so I can plan the evening. Let me know your availability, especially if you will be coming.

Advanced mediation training is required if you have decided to pursue mediation as a volunteer with Restore.

There will be another Introduction to Victim-Offender Mediation Training and Restorative Justice workshop coming up on Friday, October 30 from 6-10 and concluding Saturday, October 31 from 8:30 to 4:30. The cost for this will be $50. Please let friends know if you think they are interested. Following that Intro training in late October, there will be another opportunity to participate in a future Advanced Mediation Training.

Last but not least, if you have already attended an Intro training and want to attend again, there is no charge. Call me or email me if you have questions. Please keep checking the website for details and updates.

Advanced Training Announcement

Training news

Because of the interest in the training workshop series:  Introduction to Victim-Offender Mediation & Restorative Justice, this program will be again be offered by Restore on a quarterly basis to individuals, groups, organizations as well as to the public.  No prior mediation experience is required.  If your organization or workplace wishes to discuss the possibility of specialized or customized training, please contact John Gehm, at Restore.

Designed in two parts, training takes place on Fridays from 6-10 p.m. and concludes on Saturday from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Training will normally be held at East Side Lutheran Church, 1300 E. 10th Street in Sioux Falls.  The cost is $50 which covers all course materials, supplies, and a light lunch on Saturday.  Training scholarships are available. For those who are interested in becoming mediators for the program, an advanced mediation training seminar is required, at no additional cost.

Pre-registration is required. Visit the website for registration forms and further details and to be placed on the mailing list for additional information.  Or call the Restore offices at 605-338-6020.  E-mail at Restore-SD@sio.midco.net.

2009

October 30^th and 31^st

2010

January 22^nd 23^rd

April 30^th and May 1^st

August 19^th and 20^th