What is Restorative Circle Work?
It is social and communal. It makes of any circle within any community a chalice for the metamorphosis of conflict into co-creative becoming through the healing pulse of dialogue. We are indebted to the Restorative Circle Process developed by Dominic Barter for this integration of circle and dialogue. www.restorativecircles.org
What distinguishes the Restorative Circle Process? There are no experts; circles are facilitated by community members. Power is shared and each member has fair and equal access; there are no hierarchies of position or authority. Through a speak-and-reflect, confirm-or-correct dialogue process, conflicted significances are rewoven back into shared narratives; the reweaving heals and calls forth new ways forward that build relationship and community. Communities become empowered, confident and resilient through the journey.
What is emerging is a community-based process supporting individuals in conflict. It brings together the three parties to a conflict —those who have acted, those directly impacted and the wider community—to dialogue as equals. Participants invite each other and attend voluntarily. Circles are facilitated in 3 stages designed to identify the key factors in the conflict, reach agreements on next steps, and evaluate the results. As a circle form, they invite shared power, mutual understanding, self-responsibility and effective action. Community members facilitate these Circles.
More accurately metamorphic than restorative—it creates, out of the chaos of conflict, a new, evolved order rather than restoration of a former state. As we guide our own conflicts through this metamorphic chalice, we forge fresh confidence, resilience and creativity within community life. The Circles we form, and to which we invite our conflicts, are thereby made sacred, and the open seed-like secret of conflict made fruitful.
