In July, TTP Global traveled to New Orleans for the 10th National Conference on Community and Restorative Justice (NACRJ), joining restorative justice practitioners, educators, organizers, and community leaders from across the country.
Our team came ready to contribute. TTP Global presented three sessions:
He Aho Tapu (The Sacred Thread): Weaving Māori Culture, Language, and Leadership into Restorative Practice — Insights from a Four-School Study Journey in Aotearoa/New Zealand
From Training to Transformation: Sustaining Restorative Practice Through Distributed Leadership
Circles of Solidarity: Protecting BIPOC Through Restorative Dialogue in Polarized Times
Dr. Sherry Congrave Wilson was joined by TTP Global practitioners eveline chang and Deb Brill, along with Program Intern Zoe Mowbray. In addition to presenting, the team hosted a TTP Global table throughout the conference, creating another space to share our work, introduce the Restorative Ecological Model™, exchange resources, and connect with people doing restorative work in communities across the country.
But some of the most meaningful learning happened beyond our own sessions.
New Orleans offered an opportunity to engage with the community, history, art, and culture of the place hosting us. Our team visited Studio BE, where we experienced local community art and the use of visual storytelling to explore identity, history, resistance, memory, and community. That experience was part of a larger journey through New Orleans that reminded us that restorative work is never separate from place, culture, history, or the people who carry them.
And there is much more to say.
Over the coming months, Dr. Sherry will be writing From the Field about the conference sessions she attended, the ideas that challenged and inspired her, the team’s experience at Studio BE, encounters with the history of New Orleans, and the questions those experiences continue to raise for restorative practice and the evolving Restorative Ecological Model™.
NACRJ was an opportunity to share what TTP Global has been building. It was also an opportunity to listen, learn, connect, and return home with new questions.
And sometimes the questions we bring home are as important as the answers we went there to share.