Salt Spring Island’s Restorative Justice (RJ) group marked a busy year at its annual general meeting at the library on June 12, hearing from a special guest and sharing successes along with delicious food.
While RJ has been part of the island in some form since 1996, it only became a registered society in 2022.
Program coordinator Jessica Terezakis reported how the organization went from having zero cases two years ago to having 10 people reach out for RJ support, two RCMP referrals and doing 11 community circles. A total of 162 people were directly supported, for “a wonderful impact on our community,” she said.
RJ is a practice with Indigenous roots that brings affected parties in a conflict together to seek understanding, resolution and healing. Salt Spring’s group has a number of trained volunteers who can facilitate talking circles and provide service.
Terezakis reflected on learning how true healing takes time. Many conflicts don’t result from “malice,” she said, “but from a deep, systemic absence of empathy . . . I find we often individualize harm. We say ‘this is the bad person and this is the good person, and this person did a bad thing,’ but it’s actually the systems that are really causing a lot of harm.”
The RJ process needs to hear from people and how systems have failed them, she said, in order to “really get to the bottom of how we can support them in a deep and sustainable way; in a way that’s not a quick fix or an ending.”
Terezakis also told the approximately two dozen people attending that RJ Salt Spring was only one of six RJ groups in the province to receive $35,000 from the B.C. Civil Forfeiture Grant Program for the coming year. A CRD grant-in-aid is also appreciated. In the last fiscal year, the society operated on just over $22,000.
As a result of the extra funds, Terezakis said they hope to do more work with seniors and youth, increase the number of trained RJ volunteers and apply for registered charity status. An introductory volunteer training session is in the works for July, followed by a casework workshop in August.
“Because we have such an increase in cases we really want to grow our team and have more community collaboration and partnering on projects,” said Terezakis.
Board chair Laura Dafoe touched on the group’s origins with Irene Wright leading what was then called a “diversion program” to keep youth offenders out of the criminal court system, and noted involvement by Roberta Temmel and Charles Kahn in the early years. Temmel has remained active in the group and Kahn has returned this year as a volunteer. She also expressed gratitude to Terezakis’ predecessor Darlene Gage, who “walked us through the process of becoming our own society,” and Gayle Baker for making space for RJ circles at ASK Salt Spring on the second Friday of each month (except for upcoming summer months).
“The Restorative Justice group is able to serve our community well because of the knowledge and dedication of its active members,” concluded Dafoe. “Like other not-for-profit organizations, it depends largely on volunteers, and you are here at the AGM because you share our desire to realize a better world, a world where everyone matters, and so we thank you for your interest.”
Penelakut Tribe council member Kurt Irwin was the AGM’s guest, and spoke about the desire for the Penelakut to acquire a parcel of land on Salt Spring Island, with the northern part considered their traditional territory, and other activities he and fellow band members have been involved in. Irwin also brought cold-smoked salmon to add to a table of food and punch prepared by Temmel.
Two new board members were welcomed: retired family law practitioner and mediator Leith Martin and Island Community Services youth and family substance use worker Shae Houston. They join Dafoe, Temmel and Kaylie Maughan, who has years of experience with RJ on the mainland and has been instrumental in the group’s recent development, on the board.
For more information about RJ, email info@rjssi.org.