Our Mission & Values
Our mission is to establish a restorative justice diversion program for youth in Clark County, Nevada.
Restorative NV brings together community organizations and service providers, the State Attorney General’s Office, the Clark County District Attorney, the Harbors and Department of Juvenile Justice Services, and other partners in a collaborative effort to establish a restorative justice diversion program for youth in Clark County, Nevada, that:
- promotes public safety through a community-based, public health, trauma informed, and healing-centered approach;
- aims to address personal and systemic root causes of criminal behavior;
- reduces overall youth contact with the juvenile justice system and racially-disproportionate contact;
- transforms the culture of the agencies, organizations, and communities involved; and
- serves as a stepping stone for expansion into the adult system and other counties throughout the state.
Collaboration, compassion, accountability, equity, choice, and community are some of the key values that guide our work.
Our Vision
The Vision of Restorative Nevada is a more just and interconnected Nevada where every individual matters, belongs, and realizes their fullest potential and the culture is grounded in compassion and the Golden Rule.
Shared Purpose
Systemic change
Diverse Collaboration
Local & National
Ongoing Impact
Guided by principles
Our Story: a collaboration of local leaders & institutions
Restorative Nevada (RNV) grew out of conversations between local leaders, philanthropists, RJ practitioners, and the state Attorney General’s Office starting in late 2019.
These conversations were driven by a longing for more compassion and equity in the criminal system and in our communities and inspired by the leadership of people like Seema Gajwani, Obama Fellow and Special Counsel for Juvenile Justice Reform at the DC Office of Attorney General where youth are being actively diverted out of the criminal system. By the end of 2021, the initial Organizing Circle of Gard Jameson, CJ Brady, Tarek Maassarani, and Sophia Longi started convening a wide variety of stakeholders for the RNV Advisory Circle, finalized a Memorandum of Understanding with the Clark County District Attorney (DA) and Department of Juvenile Justice Services (DJJS) to receive referrals for arrested or cited youth, and recruited and trained 14 Facilitators representing 7 different community-based organizations and services providers in a restorative conferencing model. The DA, DJJS, and schools began to make referrals and the first restorative conferences were completed in early 2022. The Harbors and the Mob Museum were both early partners in providing space and coordinating services.
Organizing Circle
The Organizing Circle is responsible for accompanying the project through planning, implementation, and expansion until these functions can be passed on to other stakeholders or partners. We invite individuals who share in our mission to join the Organizing Circle if they are able to attend monthly (mostly virtual) meetings and take on a few hours of asynchronous work in between meetings. Click below if interested.
Advisory Circle
The Advisory Circle consists of partners and allies in relevant agencies and community organizations such as DJJS, DA, UNLV, the Harbors, Community Law Foundation, Hope for Prisoners, Clark County School District, City Council, and the County Commission. We meet quarterly to i) assist in the development, revision, and oversight of planning; ii) communicate progress to their constituents; iii) bring RJ to other aspects of their agency/organization/community and coordinate across the jurisdiction to learn from each other; iv) as well as work on the policy/legal advocacy and community sensitization that may be needed for implementation. They may also help us coordinate with complementary efforts around decarceration, positive school climate, school discipline reform, public safety budgeting, police reform, probation/parole/reentry, youth and public health services, among others that will allow for more sustained systemic results. Membership is currently open-ended and flexible. Click here if you would like to join us at our next meeting.
Our Facilitators
We are developing a cadre of restorative conferencing facilitators with the skills and experience to hold spaces for repair, accountability, healing, and understanding. Our facilitators bring their own expertise in youth engagement, counseling, social work, education, and mediation, then receive four days of intensive training, an apprenticeship, and regular refresher sessions. They represent a variety of community-based organizations and service providers:
- Eagle Quest (Stephania Saldana and Monserrat Galindo)
- Code Switch: Restorative Justice for Girls of Color (Tonya Walls and Tina Zhāng)
- Shining Star community Services (Sabrina Colson and Mason Cantoma)
- Taking Back Home Inc (Lynette Johnson)
- Candace Watkins (of the Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada)
- Multicultural Wellness West (Miyisha Hollis and Debra Maddox)
- 10,000 Kids Partnership (Troy Martinerz and Kristen Martinez)
- Future Foundation Service, LLC (Michael Brown)
Please contact us if you or your organization are interested in becoming a restorative conferencing facilitator or already have extensive conferencing experience and would like to join our efforts.
