Restorative Arlington

Restorative Arlington is a county wide effort including dozens of community volunteers to bring Restorative Justice Practices to Arlington County’s legal systems, schools, and communities. In 2020, community members, stakeholders, and system partners collaborated to create Restorative Arlington Strategic Plan (http://is.gd/RAStratPlan), which was accepted by the Arlington County Board in November 2020.

Beginning in 2022, Restorative Arlington is offering a youth and young adult focused Restorative Justice Conferencing Program called “Heart of Safety” to benefit the communities of Arlington County and the City of Falls Church. By creating spaces where young people can make amends directly to the people they have harmed, Restorative Justice helps all participants understand the impact and scope of the harm. The process also creates a space to listen and respond to the needs of the person harmed, the person responsible for causing harm, and their communities; to encourage accountability through personal reflection and collaborative planning; to integrate the person(s) who harmed into the community as a valuable and contributing member; to empower families to address youthful wrongdoing; and to create caring climates that support healthy families and communities.

Restorative Arlington acknowledges that Restorative Justice Practices:

• Have their origins in indigenous knowledge
• Deepen connections among people through intentionally inclusive practices that cultivate empathy, trust, and mutual respect
• Respond to harm by engaging all affected parties, and others as needed, in creative, collaborative processes that enable meaningful accountability through acknowledging and repairing the harm
• Support community members in handling conflict in potentially transformative ways
• Advance equity through a framework that is deeply rooted in the understanding that we are all interconnected, and we all have value.