This step provides a structure to help you assess whether your organization and this RJD program are aligned.
Welcome to Step 2! At this point in the toolkit, you have started to grow your restorative foundation with deeper understanding and hands-on experience being trained in restorative justice and holding circles. In this section, you will determine whether your organization is best suited to start this model of a restorative justice diversion program.
The question we’re asking you to answer in this section is: “Is This RJD Program the Right Fit for Our Organization?” This is a crucial one to answer. In order to help you determine how well suited your organization is to start this approach to restorative justice diversion, we’ve created a simple questionnaire based on the program’s core elements. You can fill in your answers online below or by using the printer friendly of the tool below.
Complete the questionnaire by reflecting on your organization’s values, mission, staff, history, community, and connections.
Including many voices will help you get the most accurate assessment. It’s highly recommended that multiple people at your organization contribute to filling out this questionnaire. You could complete it collaboratively or fill it out separately and share your responses together. Also, adding an RJD program to your existing programming could impact your current staff, so it’s a good idea to include everyone early on.
Once you’ve answered all the questions, follow the instructions to add up your answers and determine whether you have a green, yellow, or red light to move forward.
The following are essential components that a community-based organization must have in order to move forward with starting this model of a restorative justice diversion program.
Our organization is trusted by community members
Yes
No
Our organization has extensive experience working with young people and is oriented around young people.
Yes
No
Our organization is oriented around people harmed and/or is willing to learn how to support them using a strengths-based and trauma-informed framework.
Yes
No
Our organization is prepared to partner with the district attorney’s office and/or police department and/or local criminal legal system.
Yes
No
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The following are additional components that a community-based organization should have in order to continue moving forward with starting this model of a restorative justice diversion program.
1 = Strongly Disagree
2 = Disagree
3 = Neutral
4 = Agree
5 = Strongly Agree
Our organization has a liberation framework.
Our organization has a “power with” view of the communities we serve and not a charity or savior model.
Our organization is committed to diversion in the larger context of ending youth criminalization.
Our leadership and staff include people of color, queer people, and folks who share lived experience with program participants.
Our leadership and/or staff include youth who have participated in our programming.
Our organization has a demonstrated track record of providing services that are culturally and linguistically responsive.
Our organization is located in areas of the town/city in which participating young people live.
Our organization has experience working with youth who have been impacted by criminalization and/or the juvenile legal system in a strengths-based and trauma-informed framework.
Our organization has connections with other outside direct service community organizations and/or already offers ‘wraparound’ services for young people and people harmed.
Our organization is already connected to community and other service providers/CBO resources and has engaged them to serve our population before.
We have a demonstrated track record of partnering with community members, which would allow us to bring in community members to circles.
We can build trust with systems partners, while working independently and separately, so we don’t blur lines or create lack of confidentiality.
We’re willing to collect data and maintain confidential case file management systems
Our organization has experience with restorative justice.
Our intentions in starting this restorative justice diversion program are to serve youth and people harmed, and strengthen families and communities—not to bolster our brand (i.e. image, fame, profit).
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Every staff member plays an important role in restorative justice diversion. Take a look at the example of an RJD program organizational chart. We offer this so that, as you’re starting to plan for this program, you can get a sense of the staffing needs for the program.
As you can see, this organizational chart covers the necessary staff roles for a program during the first “pilot” year, as well as staff roles for the program as it continues to expand each year. In the first pilot year, the only necessary positions to establish are two Facilitators/Co-facilitators, a Program Manager (who initially can fill one of the facilitator roles), and a part-time Administrative Assistant. Each position has different responsibilities, which are described below. Descriptions of the responsibilities of all the positions beyond the first pilot year are also available for download below.
Later sections of the toolkit will dive deeper into the community landscape, youth criminalization, and system partner support in your geographic location. In the meantime, we’ve provided a high-level list of criteria for what makes an ideal site for our approach to an RJD program. This list was created to help you anticipate your community’s readiness for restorative justice diversion based on the following criteria:
Each of these criteria is described in detail in the resource below. If you find that your community meets most of the criteria on this list, then your organization should absolutely continue starting restorative justice diversion. If you notice that your community doesn’t have certain criteria on this list, especially in relation to the allied system partners, it means you should prepare for an uphill effort and first focus on supporting community organizing efforts to shift the political power in your community.
Once you’ve determined whether or not you’re best suited to start an RJD program, the next step is identifying who in your community you will be collaborating with, in what capacity, and to what degree they support/understand what you are trying to do. Head on over to the next step of this toolkit which will guide you through the process of building relationship with partners and allies in both the criminal legal system and in your community.
In one county, several system partners supported the need for a diversion program, and they approached a community-based organization (CBO) to be RJD facilitators. The CBO did a deep exploration of the proposed program and the necessary relationship with county agencies. They’d never partnered so closely with county agencies before, and needed to determine whether the program format would be in alignment with their organizational mission and values. In that assessment, they realized that to remain true to their values and mission, they needed complete autonomy in their diversion work; they were concerned with the implications of county agency oversight of the program. This was particularly important to the CBO because they needed to maintain the community’s trust, and to know that the information gathered from RJD program participants would remain confidential. Negotiating the CBO’s desired level of autonomy took quite some time, and many conversations between the CBO and system partners were required to build the level of trust needed to keep moving forward. But once it was decided by both the system partners and the CBO that the program would have no oversight from any referring agency, the CBO was on board.
As they began implementing the pilot program, the CBO kept a close eye on ensuring that their program participants were treated with care and cultural humility. Early on, the CBO realized that to best address the issues facing their community, they needed to expand their staff size and its diversity. By hiring more staff from the community they were serving, the organization was able to deepen their efforts and commitments to their own core values.
Resource: RJD Program Organization Chart
Resource: RJD Program Staff Roles & Responsibilities
Resource: Big Picture Site Assessment
FILL OUT Program Fit Questionnaire to determine your next steps in the toolkit
REFLECT on how your community aligns with the criteria in the Big Picture Site Assessment
