FRIENDS IN TORONTO COMMUNITY SERVICES

Purpose

The “Circle of Change Restorative Justice program (CCRJ)” is a culturally informed youth restorative justice project that will use healing circles to facilitate the restoration and reintegration process for Black and other racialized youth 12-17 yrs. old, involved in the youth justice system. The project's objective is to improve the system’s ability to rehabilitate and reintegrate young offenders, increase access to community-based rehabilitative and reintegration programming, and grow the use of alternative measures outside of the formal court process. The project provides the victim, youth/accused, their families, and staff involved in the youth justice system with access to an alternative and effective way to addressing crime and working towards healing for the youth/accused through the development of a reparation plan and engaging the victim and community organizations/businesses to support the reparation plan.