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Intensive Restorative Circles Track

with special guest trainers:
Gina Cenciose, Gail Claspell, Jane Connor, Duke Duchscherer, & John Myser

What are Restorative Circles?

Restorative Circles, based on the work of CNVC trainer, Dominic Barter, offer ways for individuals, families, groups and communities to establish connection, discover meaning and recover power on profound levels. They create a forum for connecting empathically across differences and reaching agreements that support safety and well-being, both personally and within society.

Restorative Circles offer a way to:

• restore the connections and relationships necessary for healthy and safe communities;
• create opportunities for everyone affected by the conflict to speak and be heard;
• engage individuals and their communities to take responsibility for particular conflicts and ownership of the process
• tap into the resourcefulness of the community for creating next steps.

To learn more see http://www.restorativecircles.org/.

Who is it for?

Anyone interested in how to nurture and sustain power-with, compassionate communities: those working or living in any community or social system system such as health care, schools, the justice system, neighborhoods, families, businesses, non-profit organizations.

At this year's intensive, five trainers with extensive experience, both in training with Dominic Barter and in implementing Restorative Circles of their own, will offer an intensive track on the Restorative Circles process.

Restorative Circles at the New York Intensive this year will include:

• A 12 hour Intro to Restorative Circles
• Question and Answer sessions discussing their implementation of Restorative Circles in different systems, including Family Court in Minnesota
• practice Restorative Circle sessions

In the past two years, we have also had a Restorative Circle system in place at the New York Intensive to address conflicts that arise at the Intensive, and others that participants brought from their home communities. We are exploring offer this again in 2010.

Here are some bios of our guest trainers (more to come!):

	Gina Cenciose is a lively and passionate CNVC trainer working with groups, individuals and organizations in English and in French to fully integrate the change of consciousness NVC calls us to. She currently co-leads 7 different year long programs with other wonderful trainers and assistants all over North America. She also implements Dominic Barter’s system of Restorative Circles at every opportunity, and she is currently supporting various organizations (including a corporation of 500 employees), faith communities and families to adopt this living model. Gina combines NVC with Inquiry and Inner relationship Focusing in many of her programs. She is co-founder of eastern Canada’s Restorative Family Network. Click on the following link to see a video of Gina's training: http://www.nvctraining.com/media/GC/TP-key-diffs-200812/ or visit her website at www.EmbodyingEmpathy.com.
	Gail Claspell: Gail has been a student and practitioner of Nonviolent Communication since 2004 and of Restorative Justice since 2007.  She is a collaborative trainer with Bay Area Nonviolent Communication (BayNVC), where she focuses on Restorative Circles and Restorative Systems. She brings 18 years of experience in the high tech industry to the exploration of systems.  She is energized by supporting individuals, groups and organizations to explore how the processes they use impact the results they experience.  Gail works with Dominic Barter to bring the restorative practices and systems he developed in Brazil to the worldwide community of restorative justice practitioners. This is the third year she is implementing a Restorative Circle System at the New York Intensive.
	Jane Connor: Jane is passionate about increasing harmony and peace on the planet and is particularly eager to share NVC and the Restorative Circles process in under-served communities. She recently returned from a term spent in East Africa where the receptivity to these processes was extremely gratifying to her. Jane, a CNVC certified trainer, is co-author of Connecting Across Differences: An Introduction to Compassionate, Nonviolent Communication. She was a founder and organizer for many years of the New York Intensive Residential Training for Nonviolent Communication. Jane also greatly values living in community and using NVC and Restorative Processes to enhance the experience of community living. Return to top.
	Duke Duchscherer is a Certified Trainer with the International Center for Nonviolent Communication and is on the Board of Directors for the MK Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence. For the past 17 years Duke has taught and facilitated peacebuilding and reconciliation processes with a depth and breadth of peoples and groups from the grassroots to the United Nations on four continents. For more than 2 years Duke has been learning from Dominic Barter (originator of the Restorative Circle process) while helping to set up a Restorative System for a university and a church; and teaching and applying the process within small groups and communities across N. America, Europe and Asia. Duke has a deep passion to find ways to (re)build relationships that acknowledges shared interdependence while affirming the unique strength and beauty in each person/group.
	John Myser: John graduated from the BayNVC 2007 Leadership program, Robert Gonzales' Life 2008 Program, and Linnaea Marvell’s Magical Steps. In Nov 2008, he started work in Minneapolis Family Court, setting up the first Restorative Circle program to deal with family conflict. Restorative Circle provides an alternative track for families who find themselves stuck in our current legal system (an adversarial approach for families in conflict), who are seeking help to create a solution that supports divorcing families with kids, a solution that doesn’t create more pain in the process. John has a passion for creating systems that are life serving.

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