8/13/18 CA Call -Oakland as a Restorative City w/ Teiahsha Bankhead
THE CALIFORNIA PEACE ALLIANCE/
CAMPAIGN FOR U.S. DEPARTMENT OF PEACEBUILDING
Invites You to Join Our
Second Monday Telephone Conference on 8/13/18
with Guest Speaker
Teiahsha Bankhead
Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth
To Discuss
Oakland as a Restorative City
August 13, 2018 at 7:30 p.m. (Pacific Time)
Call-in # 1-712-775-7031, Access Code 719-062-520#
If unable to get through on that number, dial 1-951-262-7373
If being told there is a charge, call 1-884-884-1322
This call is open to all who are interested.
We envision a safe and equitable world where restorative interactions transform individuals,
relationships, communities and systems through the prevention, repair and deep healing
of harm.
– National Association of Community and Restorative Justice, Vision Statement (www.nacrj.org)
Oakland is many things to many people. Some think diversity. Some think action. Some think danger. Some think innovation. Some think beauty. Author Gertrude Stein, raised in Oakland, once famously said about Oakland, there is no there there. According to one source, Ms. Stein was not talking about disdain for the city, but that “after 30 years in Paris she came back to find her house was no longer there, her school was no longer there, her park was no longer there, her synagogue was no longer there. So for her, there was no longer a there there.” (www.everything2.com)
There certainly is a there in the community of Oakland. Please join the call with Teiahsha Bankhead to learn what it means for Oakland to be a restorative city.
Dr. Teiahsha Bankhead, Executive Director of Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth (RJOY), is a social justice activist, a restorative justice advocate, a licensed psychotherapist and a professor with both MSW and Ph.D. degrees in social work.
Born to a Black radical mother during the uprising of the Watts Rebellion and coming of age in South Central Los Angeles during the embittered racial relations and social unrest of the civil rights era ignited within Dr. Bankhead a passionate commitment to social justice advocacy and transformative community empowerment.
Dr. Bankhead has a commitment to racial justice, racial healing and restorative economics. She has taught racial, gender and sexual orientation diversity, theories of criminal behavior, and US social policy at the undergraduate and graduate levels. She speaks and holds circles on the subjects of School-Based Restorative Justice, Race and Restorative Justice, the Indigenous Roots of Restorative Justice, Social Justice and Restorative Justice, Truth-Telling and Racial Healing, Youth-Led and Movement-Based Restorative Justice, the School-to-Prison Pipeline, Mass Incarceration, and Restorative Cities.
Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth (RJOY), founded in 2005, works through restorative alternatives to interrupt cycles of violence which disparately impact youth of color and which include punitive school discipline and juvenile justice policies that lead to incarceration and wasted lives. The term ‘restorative practices‘ refers to facilitated group practices that emphasize shared understanding and repairing any harm experienced in connection with the actions of one or more individuals.
Although RJOY was founded with a local focus in the Oakland/ East Bay Area, community organizations and school districts in CA and the nation are increasingly calling upon RJOY for training and technical assistance. Beginning in 2007, RJOY’s city-funded West Oakland Middle School pilot project eliminated violence and expulsions, and reduced suspension rates by 87%, saving the school thousands in attendance and Title I funding. (See www.rjoyoakland.org)
In June of 2017, Dr. Bankhead co-chaired, with Fania Davis, the largest, most diverse and most far reaching Restorative Justice conference in US history, the Sixth National NACRJ conference in Oakland with the theme, “Moving Restorative Justice From Margins to Center: We’re the Ones We’ve Been Waiting For,” which included over 1,300 registered attendees, 120 formerly incarcerated adults and 80 youth.
People start to heal the moment they feel heard.
– Cheryl Richardson
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In addition to discussing Oakland as a Restorative City, we will talk about Peace Alliance and CA Peace Alliance/ Department of Peacebuilding events and projects, including the recent CA Democratic Party Executive Board meeting in Oakland, International Day of Peace activities and the upcoming Department of Peacebuilding Advocacy Days in Washington, DC and its companion action to AMPLIFY Our Voices by calling Congress while we are there. See AMPLIFY Flyer.
Nancy Merritt
Peace Alliance Leadership Council
National Committee for a U.S. Department of Peacebuilding
California State Coordinator, Northern CA
[email protected]
