Restorative Practices: From Conflict Resolution to Collective Liberation

Traditional workplace conflict resolution prioritizes organizational risk management over human healing. My approach to restorative practices centers community accountability, structural transformation, and collective liberation—moving beyond individual repair toward dismantling the systems that create harm in the first place.

When 25% of UK workers experienced workplace conflict in 2024, with 48% reporting being humiliated or undermined and 20% facing discriminatory behavior, superficial mediation cannot address the power imbalances that generate these patterns. Restorative practices, grounded in Indigenous wisdom and liberation theology, offer pathways to genuine transformation that honor both individual healing and systemic change.

Beyond Liberal Conflict Resolution

The Limits of Neutral Mediation

Mainstream conflict resolution assumes disputes arise from miscommunication or personality clashes. This framework obscures how structural inequalities—racism, sexism, ableism, classism—create the conditions where harm flourishes. “Neutral” facilitation often protects existing power structures while asking those experiencing oppression to compromise with those perpetuating it.

Research demonstrates that restorative justice reduces recidivism by 14% and saves £9 for every £1 invested, but these metrics miss the deeper transformation available when we address root causes rather than symptoms. My practice integrates critical theory analysis with traditional circle processes to examine how organizational hierarchies, resource distribution, and decision-making structures enable ongoing harm.

Centering Community Accountability

Community accountability shifts responsibility from individual bad actors to collective systems that either enable or prevent harm. This means examining not just what happened between two people, but how organizational culture, policies, and power dynamics created the conditions where harm could occur—and how we can collectively transform those conditions.

Unlike traditional mediation that seeks quick resolution, community accountability processes commit to ongoing development of all community members and transform the political conditions that reinforce oppression and violence. This work requires sustained engagement with questions of power, resources, and whose voices are centered in organizational decision-making.

The Transformative Justice Framework

Moving from Repair to Revolution

Transformative justice recognizes that individual healing cannot be separated from collective liberation. Where restorative justice focuses on repairing relationships, transformative justice asks: What structural changes are needed to prevent similar harm? How do we transform the conditions that allowed this harm to flourish?

This framework integrates three interconnected commitments:

Individual and Collective Justice: Neither can be achieved without the other. Personal healing happens in community; systemic change requires addressing individual trauma and harm.

Personal and Political Transformation: We must work on ourselves while dismantling oppressive institutions. The systems that create organizational trauma also shape our individual healing needs.

State Resistance: True safety comes from community care and accountability, not punitive systems that reproduce violence through HR disciplinary processes or legal threats.

Anti-Oppressive Circle Processes

Traditional restorative circles risk reproducing the same power dynamics they aim to heal. Anti-oppressive restorative practices require intentional analysis of how race, gender, sexuality, disability, and class shape participation, voice, and outcomes.

This means:

• Acknowledging whose land we’re meeting on and centering Indigenous leadership in circle practices
• Analyzing power differentials between participants and adjusting facilitation accordingly
• Prioritizing the voices of those most marginalized in organizational hierarchies
• Connecting individual conflicts to broader patterns of institutional oppression
• Committing to resource redistribution and structural change, not just apologies

Healing Circles for Organizational Transformation

Community-Centered Healing

Healing circles create spaces for collective processing of organizational trauma while building the relationships necessary for systemic change. Unlike therapy groups focused on individual healing, these circles examine how institutional racism, sexism, and other oppressions shape workplace experiences and identify collective responses.

Research with Black, Indigenous, and Women of Color educators demonstrates how healing circles can create “collective and collaborative healing processes from the harm of institutional gendered racism.” These spaces become sites of resistance and transformation, not just coping and accommodation.

Beyond Individual Resilience

The dominant workplace wellness narrative places responsibility on individuals to become more “resilient” to toxic environments. Liberation-centered healing circles flip this framework, asking: How do we transform the conditions creating trauma rather than asking people to better endure harm?

Circle processes become opportunities for collective strategizing about organizational change, mutual aid, and community care—not just emotional processing.

Applications Across Organizational Contexts

Faith Community Healing

Religious organizations carry particular responsibilities around spiritual harm and abuse of pastoral power. My work with Faith-Based Consulting integrates restorative practices with liberation theology traditions that center prophetic witness and community accountability.

This includes addressing clergy misconduct through survivor-centered processes that prioritize healing while transforming institutional structures that enabled harm. Circle processes become opportunities for congregational discernment about power, resources, and whose voices shape community life.

Workplace Discrimination and Harassment

Traditional HR investigations often retraumatize survivors while protecting institutional liability. Transformative restorative practices center survivor needs while addressing the organizational culture that enabled discrimination.

This work connects with Workplace Misconduct & Ethics to examine not just individual incidents but patterns of hiring, promotion, resource allocation, and decision-making that systematically exclude marginalized voices. Circle processes become opportunities for organizational accountability and structural change.

LGBTQ+ Inclusion and Healing

Queer and trans workers face heightened discrimination and violence, with 63% reporting workplace bias. Restorative circles addressing LGBTQ+ harm require understanding how heteronormativity and cis-supremacy operate systemically, not just individually.

My approach integrates LGBTQ+ Issues & Inclusion analysis with circle processes that create spaces for collective healing from minority stress while strategizing for organizational transformation. This includes examining policies, benefits, leadership representation, and cultural messaging that either support or harm LGBTQ+ community members.

Trauma-Informed Organizational Change

Organizations operating under white supremacy culture patterns—urgency, perfectionism, individualism, binary thinking—create ongoing trauma for workers, particularly those from marginalized communities. Trauma-informed restorative practices address both immediate harm and the cultural patterns that generate it.

This work integrates Trauma-Informed Practices with circle processes that examine how organizational rhythms, expectations, and communication patterns either support or undermine collective wellbeing. Circle conversations become opportunities for cultural transformation guided by healing justice principles.

The Circle Process: Structure for Liberation

Creating Sacred Space

Every circle begins with land acknowledgment and recognition of the Indigenous origins of circle practices. We establish agreements for confidentiality, speaking from personal experience, and committed listening while acknowledging that safety means different things for people with different identities and experiences.

Sharing and Witnessing

Circle rounds provide structure for sharing personal impact while connecting individual experiences to broader patterns. Questions might include: How has this harm affected you? What do you need for healing? What structural changes would prevent similar harm?

Community Response and Accountability

Rather than focusing solely on individual apologies, circles examine collective responsibility for transformation. What policies need changing? How should resources be redistributed? What ongoing accountability structures will support sustained change?

Commitment and Follow-Through

Circles conclude with concrete commitments to both individual healing and organizational transformation. These commitments are revisited in follow-up circles to ensure accountability and sustained change.

Calls to Action

Schedule a Community Accountability Consultation

Ready to move beyond individual conflict resolution toward collective transformation? Let’s discuss how restorative practices can serve your community’s liberation.
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The Invitation to Transformation

Restorative practices are not about returning to previous conditions—they’re about creating something new. When we integrate Indigenous wisdom with critical analysis and community organizing principles, circle processes become sites of collective empowerment and systemic transformation.

This work requires courage to examine how we’ve been shaped by oppressive systems and commitment to ongoing accountability within communities of practice. It asks us to move beyond individual healing toward collective liberation.

Ready to learn more transformation through community accountability? Check out my blog:

For immediate support with community conflict or organizational trauma, contact me directly.