Peacemaking Circles
The bare bones of a Peacemaking Circle are: Opening, Check-In, Community Building, Topic/Issue, Reflection, and Closing. Generally, there is a circle keeper, and people take turns using a talking piece. A very good resource for this practice is Heart of Hope, A Guide for Using Peacemaking Circles to Develop Emotional Literacy, Promote Healing & Build Healthy Relationships by Carolyn Boyes-Watson and Kay Pranis.
A talking Circle of this type is powerful and elegant in it's simplicity. Circles of this type can be used in many ways, including to build and maintain community, address topics, make plans, celebrate or mourn together, and/or to address issues, including conflict. Immediately after we introduced this process at a middle school in 2010, students were found giving it a try while waiting out on the blacktop during a fire drill! In my experience, people seem to take to it quite naturally and quickly, even among people engaging over the telephone.
A Circle Template and Sample Agendas can be found on the Resources page.
For learning more, I recommend the work of Dr. Fania Davis, Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth (RJOY), as well as Howard Zehr and Lorraine Stutzman Amstutz, Eastern Mennonite University.
A talking Circle of this type is powerful and elegant in it's simplicity. Circles of this type can be used in many ways, including to build and maintain community, address topics, make plans, celebrate or mourn together, and/or to address issues, including conflict. Immediately after we introduced this process at a middle school in 2010, students were found giving it a try while waiting out on the blacktop during a fire drill! In my experience, people seem to take to it quite naturally and quickly, even among people engaging over the telephone.
A Circle Template and Sample Agendas can be found on the Resources page.
For learning more, I recommend the work of Dr. Fania Davis, Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth (RJOY), as well as Howard Zehr and Lorraine Stutzman Amstutz, Eastern Mennonite University.
