TurningPointPartners.com
Title
Turning Point Partners
Description
Turning Point Partners (TPP), now in its fifth year of operation, is confronting major challenges as a result of the changes in its environment caused by hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Its mission had been and remains to develop and establish restorative, strength-based systems in schools, courts, and communities. Inherent in the mission statement is the need to have healthy systems with members healed from the trauma of their daily lives exacerbated by the natural disasters. The TPP approach focuses on the talents and gifts of young people and their families to overcome the high-risk conditions under which they live and it draws upon the inherent power of communities to facilitate systemic change. TPP integrates three powerful models – Community Building Circles, Mindful/Non-violent Communication (M/NVC), and Restorative Justice (RJ) – to design and implement innovative programs that model systemic change.
Community Building Circles are experiential workshops in which participants join together to overcome cultural, political, racial, and economic differences by developing trust, risk-taking, and shared leadership. Mindful Communication develops a consciousness and offers practical skills that promote clear communication, deep understanding, and vital compassion with oneself and between people. Restorative Justice is a systemic response to wrongdoing that emphasizes healing the wounds of all those impacted by a crime: victims, offenders and communities. In schools this response, termed Restorative Discipline, offers educational institutions a process that allows differences to be resolved nonviolently while reconciling relationships.
Our three staff members have diverse professional backgrounds that include experiences and certification where applicable as counselors, teachers, community organizers, drama therapists, and restorative justice practitioners. Volunteers include a lawyer, accountant, and grass roots community leaders. Four years ago, very few people in our region were aware of Restorative Justice or Nonviolent Communication. Our efforts to educate and outreach through workshops and trainings have contributed to these philosophies and practices becoming recognized for their effectiveness and humanness. The social and political climate of our institutions is slowly transforming due in part to the models TPP has developed in such diverse venues as the Orleans and Jefferson Parish Juvenile Courts, Bridge City Center for Youth, and Marion Abramson Senior High School.
Additional Information
Related Domains
- Alternatives To Violence
- Classes
- Communities
- Community
- Community Building
- Community Building Circles
- Conferencing
- Dispositional Alternatives
- Focus Groups
- Juvenile
- Juvenile Law
- Law
- Legal Information
- Louisiana
- New Orleans
- Prison
- Public
- Reentry Conferencing
- Restorative Justice
- Society
- Training Workshops
- Trauma
- Victim Impact Panels
- Victim Offender Conferencing
- Workshop
- Workshops
- Youth