Lindsey Pointer, PhD

Welcome

Thank you for the opportunity to share my passion for restorative practices with you! I firmly believe that restorative justice and restorative practices hold the potential to transform our communities and the way we respond to conflict and wrongdoing. The emphasis on connection, healing, and reparation this philosophy provides is making the world a more peaceful and compassionate place.

This site is a space for me to share my work in this field and also a way for communities to contact me regarding training, consulting and facilitation services.

I also hope that this site will be a rich resource for individuals and communities looking to implement restorative practices. It features a collection of case studies, articles, and interviews intended to delve more deeply into the benefits, opportunities, and challenges of Restorative Practices. I welcome comments, questions, and thoughts in response to the writing posted on this site. My hope is to create space for discussion about a promising alternative in a justice system in dire need of reform.

What are Restorative Practices?

More than just a collection of community building and conflict transformation processes, this work is now best understood as a Restorative Social Movement, aimed at strengthening communities and repairing harm in a way that honors our innate connection.

This social movement is grounded in a collection of transformative processes that can be implemented in any community. Restorative Practices refers to a collection of processes that serve to build, maintain, and repair relationships. These practices strengthen communities and allow a space for conflict to be transformed into an opportunity for greater understanding. This includes tools such as the circle and  the restorative conversation model.

Restorative Justice is a restorative practice that is used after a crime or wrongdoing has occurred. Restorative Justice is increasingly being implemented as an alternative to traditional punitive sanctions in the justice system, schools, and workplaces.

The Restorative Justice process brings together victim, offender, and community members to ask three central questions:

1. What happened?
2. Who was impacted and how?
3. What is needed to make things right?

More than a process, Restorative Justice also represents a greater paradigm shift in the way we view crime and conflict, and how we see the community as a whole. Read more here: What is Restorative Justice? or watch this video Introduction to Restorative Justice.