A Restorative Approach to the 2025 Canada Games: Lessons Learned

In partnership with Sport Nova Scotia, the Restorative Lab led the design of a trailblaze initiative to take a restorative approach to team safety and wellbeing at the 2025 Canada Games in St. John’s, Newfoundland. This initiative was part of more than three years of on-going collaboration devoted to promoting and designing the adoption of a restorative pathway to address abuse in provincial sport. This report is a summary of learnings from this trailblaze.

Embedding Relational Restorative Justice in Columbia’s Total Peace Negotiations

By Kerry Clamp, University of Nottingham and Jennifer Llewellyn, Dalhousie University

Click Here to View the Full Report [English]

Click Here to View the Full Report [en español] 

This Think Piece, a collaboration between the Restorative Lab at Dalhousie University and University of Notingham,  argues that Colombia’s Total Peace policy represents a pivotal opportunity to embed relational restorative justice as the guiding framework for building a sustainable and inclusive peace. Drawing on ongoing negotiations between the Colombian government and Comuneros del Sur in Nariño, it shows how justice can be reimagined not as a discrete phase of post-conflict repair but as the relational architecture that connects and sustains the entire peace process. By centering relationships, participation, and contextual responsiveness, relational restorative justice transforms peacebuilding from a technical exercise into a process of co-construction rooted in dignity, trust, and shared responsibility. The paper identifies seven relational dimensions already emerging in practice and proposes six strategic recommendations for embedding them more intentionally in negotiation design and implementation. It concludes that when justice is enacted relationally, peace becomes not a settlement to be reached but a living process of transformation through which people, communities, and institutions rebuild together.

Relational Restorative Justice in Action: Building the conditions for just peace in Columbia

By Jennifer Llewellyn, Dalhousie University and Kerry Clamp, University of Nottingham

Click Here to View the Full Report [English]

Click Here to View the Full Report [en español]

This Think Piece explores how relational restorative justice is being enacted through Colombia’s ongoing peace process, with a focus on the Comuneros del Sur negotiations in Nariño. It builds on the foundational argument that justice must be lived and practiced within peace processes, not deferred until conflict ends. Drawing on the workshop held in Pasto in September 2025, it examines how justice is already being co-created through inclusive participation, shared responsibility, and local leadership. It considers the role of law not as the source of justice, but as an enabler of relational conditions, and outlines key orientations for policy, practice, and institutional design. The piece closes with a clear message: the compass for just peace exists. The question is whether Colombia will choose to follow it.

The Long Road to System Transformation: Lessons from an RJ Practitioner in New York City

Erika Sasson is an attorney and practitioner who designs and facilitates restorative justice processes. Her work is focused on piloting restorative frameworks for complex harm, including for intimate partner violence, sexual assault, and homicide. She also consults on long-term projects with organizations in New York City and around the country who want to create restorative justice programming, or who need to navigate complex dynamics in pursuit of a healthier workplace. Erika’s work is anchored by her experiences learning directly from Native American peacemakers from across North America. Among her current projects, Erika is working with Violence Intervention Program—NYC’s only Latinx-led nonprofit focused on providing culturally-specific services to Latinx survivors of domestic and sexual violence—to create a localized restorative justice program tailored to the needs of their community. Erika is a 2023 recipient of The David Prize for extraordinary New Yorkers. Originally from Canada, Erika moved to NYC in 2009 and is raising a family with her husband Misha in Brooklyn, NY. Learn more or get in touch at erikasasson.com.

https://youtu.be/wU54dPA_NLs?feature=shared

Toward a Restorative Approach in Sport

Delivered by Jacob Glover on May 26, 2024 at 7:30 PM via Zoom.

Jacob Glover has a background in ancient philosophy, contemporary continental philosophy, and law. His interest in restorative justice took root in Prof. Jennifer Llewellyn’s seminars when he began thinking about the philosophical overlap between relational theory, restorative justice, ancient rhetoric, and network theory. Before returning to graduate school, he practiced corporate and property law. His graduate work focuses on taking a restorative approach to sport.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQSVCmi1d6o&ab_channel=RestorativeResearchInnovationandEducationLab

Click here to view our May 2024 Newsletter

Issue 1: May 2024

We are pleased to announce the 2024 Associates and Fellows Public Seminar Series featuring Erika Sasson and Jacob Glover

Click here for Registration

Final Report from National Restorative Justice Collaborative Learning Conference (NRCLC)

The National Collaborative Learning Conference 2022 was held October 2022 in Halifax, NS. The NRCLC engaged delegations from provinces, territories and the Federal level in a collaborative process to identify key elements and commitments required to advance and realize the potential of restorative justice to transform the approach to justice in Canada.

The convenors and facilitators of the 2022 NRCLC prepared this report, which provides background and an overview of the 2022 conference and shares insights, ideas and recommendations that emerged from the NRCLC. 

Reimagining Our Healthcare System: A Restorative Approach was a presentation and panel event hosted by First Nations Health Authority, Interior Health, and UBC Okanagan’s School of Nursing on October 5, 2022. The presentation by Professor Jennifer Llewellyn describes how a restorative approach to healthcare can transform systems and service delivery and create a shift in values and thinking, strengthening relationships between healthcare providers and the people and communities for whom they provide care.

COVID-19’s Disorienting Impact on
Criminal Justice in Nova Scotia

Delivered by Emma Halpern on April 17, 2023 at 7:30 PM via Zoom.
Emma Halpern is the inaugural Graduate Fellow at the Restorative Lab. Emma is a lawyer, activist and advocate who has worked extensively on behalf of vulnerable and marginalized people in Nova Scotia.  She is also the Executive Director of the Elizabeth Fry Society of Mainland Nova Scotia an organization that is devoted to improving the lives of women, trans and non- binary people through comprehensive housing supports, innovative programming initiatives, advocacy, justice system reform and through fostering and developing personal empowerment. In 2022, Emma joined PATH Legal as the Legal Director. Prior to this role Emma was the Equity and Access Officer at the Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society. She was also a consultant on the provincial government restorative approaches in schools initiative and has conducted extensive research and project development around building a restorative approach to working with children and youth.  In 2011, Emma was named one of Chatelaine Magazine’s Women of the Year in the category of “Everyday Hero” for her work on this project. Emma enjoys spending time with her three fantastic sons and is completing her LLM at Dalhousie Schulich School of Law focusing on the transformative opportunities born out of the pandemic’s impact on criminal justice in Nova Scotia. In particular, her research interests are in decarceration and relational justice.
Learn more about PATH Legal here: https://www.pathlegal.ca/
Learn more about Elizabeth Fry Society of Mainland Nova Scotia: https://www.efrymns.ca/