Sexual Assault & Domestic Violence

NALSC Restorative Justice Initiative is a pilot project funded by the Ministry of the Attorney General for Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence. The intent is to complete training in facilitating Restorative Justice Circle with an emphasis on sexual abuse and domestic violence cases. 

When looking at this area some communities have identified specific needs that they would like to see occur in the area of Sexual Abuse & Domestic Violence.

These Needs Include:

• Providing training for frontline workers on how to move forward with sexual assault matters
• Forming networking within communities
• Build awareness of the Restorative Justice sexual assault and domestic violence program in the community.

Restorative Justice is a voluntary process involving the person who has been harmed, the person who has caused the harm and their supporters. With the intent being to bring them together to talk about what happened, who was affected and what can be done to help repair the harm.

The offender must take responsibility for their actions in order to be admitted into a restorative justice program. This is an opportunity for the offender to understand the harm caused and prepare in some ways to find and accept responsibility for the offence committed.

As such, restorative justice can help resolve nearly any form of wrongdoing or conflict, including sexual assault and domestic violence. Sexual and domestic violence can be address through restorative justice sharing circles in schools, and schools can even have their own restorative justice coordinators on school sites who are trained in facilitating the restorative justice process.

For sexual assault survivors, restorative justice may offer an alternative to the current broken system which focuses on the punishment and not the repairing.

When trauma is not dealt with in the community, it continues to grow if not treated. It affects everyone involved, including the community, and in turn continues to promote fear and helplessness, most times the most common way to cope is by ignoring the trauma altogether.

Restorative Justice is a program where a community can heal together. This can be accomplished by creating restorative justice alternative measures, while also developing a Sexual Assault Training programming to train community members so they are able to work as restorative justice facilitators.

It is the hope that the sexual assault and domestic violence referral and intake process will help in educating other NALSC restorative justice workers on how to proceed with these cases, and begin working with sexual assault cases referrals to their program.

However, a restorative justice worker is only a facilitator leaving the local service providers to be the backbone for healing within the community. It is the local service providers to monitor the progress and ensure restorative justice circle agreement are being completed.