What are restorative practices and how can they help our libraries create dialog, trust, and growth? On this show Stephen Jackson, Director of Equity and Anti-Racism at Oak Park Public Library in Illinois, talks about creating peace circles in libraries where people can share perspectives in safe environments that develop relationships and heal trauma.
Transcript
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Adriane Herrick Juarez:
This is Adriane Herrick Juarez. You’re listening to Library Leadership Podcast, where we talk about libraries and leadership and speak with guests who share their ideas, innovations, and strategic insights in the profession.
What are restorative practices and how can they help our libraries create dialogue, trust and growth? On this show, Steven Jackson, Director of Equity and Anti-Racism at Oak Park Public Library in Illinois, talks about creating peace circles in libraries where people can share perspectives in safe environments that develop relationships and heal trauma. Enjoy the show!
Steven, welcome to the show.
Stephen Jackson:
Happy to be here.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #1: I’m happy to have you here. Today we are talking about embracing restorative practices in leadership. As we begin, what are restorative practices and how do these apply to libraries? 01:23
Stephen Jackson:
When you think about restorative practices, they are ways that we think, speak and act to mitigate harm caused to people. They are really proactive ways—that is the key to the restorative practices piece. It’s a proactive way to do these things—to ensure, to the extent that we can, that no harm is being caused to anyone. In the case where harm is caused, that’s when restorative justice comes in.
Restorative justice is a reactive way to mitigate harm, where you’re having the person who caused the harm, the person who is actually harmed, and then sometimes the bystanders, the people who are in the area who have been impacted by what the initial harm that was caused—you get all these people together and you come up with a solution and a plan. It’s a process—it’s quite a process. It takes time. That’s one thing that I always tell people. It takes time. Healing takes time because restorative justice is all about relationships. So, when you think about restorative anything—you think about relationships.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #2: So, restorative practices are about healing and relationships and bringing people together to talk about something that’s happened. When it comes to implementing restorative practices to engage in healing, what can help us increase overall effectiveness? 02:42
Stephen Jackson:
Go back to that foundational component that I told you of relationships, relationship building. Strong and positive relationships are the foundation to restorative practices. As I said earlier, it takes time to build relationships. But as I said, strong and positive relationships—they’re the foundation of what restorative practices and restorative justice are built on.
Another piece is active listening. You want to actively listen, because it allows you to hear what the other person is saying versus just listening to what a person is saying. Though it says active listening, there’s a difference between hearing it—hearing and listening, and listening. There’s more intention. There’s more intent. When you’re talking about listening and hearing—I can hear the heat vent blowing, but it’s so passive I can hear it if I pay attention to it. But it takes active listening to actually hear it. Actively listening to people is a very critical component.
Then another piece is suspending judgment. There are certain areas that we may not be aware of that are influencing what is currently in front of us. You never know what the other person is going through. When it’s all said and done, suspending judgment is giving people grace. At some point in time we want that ourselves, so it’s always good to give it. So, relationship building, active listening, and suspended judgment are three things that come to mind.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #3: Those are important concepts in libraries. Will you share your take on modeling as a restorative practice? 04:22
Stephen Jackson:
Modeling is really critical as a restorative practice because it shows others how you would like to be treated. In the leadership position, or leadership station, there’s really power in the leader actively, or actually, leading through modeling. When you see someone that’s leading in the trenches, and that’s not always all that needs to be the case—being in the trenches with others, but seeing your leader do things that they’re asking you to do—it does something to people. It makes them buy into what you’re selling and lets them know that you understand what their mandate, or what their role entails.
I was at a summit last week and talking to leaders. We were talking about coming out of Covid and how some of the leaders were putting together care packages and just doing different stuff. They would show up, not in their normal attire. They were received by their staff in a different way. So from that point on, one particular director said they never dressed up to come to work again. It helped build community by modeling that—modeling just being on the same level—no hierarchy in the clothing [laughter], if that’s a thing—really helped build those relationships and allowed them to model some behaviors that they wanted to see within the organization by doing those things.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #4: It makes sense that demonstrating what you want to see as a leader can be a restorative practice. I want to circle back on something you talked about earlier. You mentioned listening, I don’t think that’s a skill set that’s commonly taught. Can you go a little deeper into listening as a restorative practice? 05:59
Stephen Jackson:
Most definitely, I’ll use the circle process as an example. Circle process is a restorative practice where you sit in the circle and it’s a true democracy. You have a talking piece, it’s passed. You have a topic. You ask prompts, questions, and it goes around.
In this practice, in a lot of cases, you’re forced into actively listening because you only can talk if you have a talking piece. Depending on how many people there are when it comes around to you, you may forget what you were actually thinking because you had to actively listen to people.
It allows people to be seen. It allows people to be heard. And that’s very important, especially now coming out of a pandemic where a lot of people are dealing with loneliness. Even, like I said, out of the pandemic people are dealing with loneliness. So, being seen and being heard is a byproduct of actively listening. It makes people feel validated and valued. Like you said, that’s not a practice that’s taught in school. In formal education, public education, there is no class on listening. It’s a practice that some people go their whole lives and never really quite get.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #5: Listening is important. And, I wonder if you will share about the circle practice in general, for those of us who don’t know much about it. What is this, and how does it work in library organizations? 07:31
Stephen Jackson:
In our organization in 2020—right before the pandemic hit, a week before the pandemic, our staff development coordinator, who’s since retired, and myself decided to create a cohort of restorative practitioners. She was trained. I was trained, and there was one other staff member that was trained to be a peacekeeper. That’s a person that can facilitate circle dialogue, depending on what type of circle—there’re various types of circles, grief circles, celebration circles, conflict circles, you name it, you can circle about anything. It’s an indigenous practice where people sit down in a space and they meet about a particular topic, and the facilitator is the one who guides the conversation.
The facilitator is not the hierarchy in the circle, but a person that makes sure there is equity within the process, and makes sure things don’t go off the rails while in that circle space. But, it takes a lot of practice in doing this. I’ve been doing this practice coming up on fourteen years. I’ve had a handful of bad circles, I can think of two.
It’s a practice in our organization where initially we wanted to work with community partners and organizations, and turn outward and do this practice. But, due to Covid these ten people who were just trained—like I said, a week before Covid hit, needed to figure out what we wanted to do, or how we wanted to use this practice. So, we started doing support circles for our staff members. What happened with that is, ultimately, one of our staff members—one of our valued staff members, in an organization where someone knows all the staff, all their children, their dogs, everything, and then they know all the public, they just have a way of engaging—a gregarious person, we lost that person, and it really took a toll on our organization. So, we did grief circles—our trained circle keepers, we did these things virtually. Then eventually when we did start coming back to the building, we were doing them in person. We still continue to circle-up around things, working with local school districts, high schools, and local community partners such as Oak Park Township Youth Services. Like I said, there can be any range of things—conflict discussion circles, book circles, you name it, but it’s a safe space where people can come in and show up authentically who they are. Who doesn’t want to do that?
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #6: You shared that restorative practices can help address trauma in the workplace. Can you talk about how that works? 10:25
Stephen Jackson:
One example is the example I just shared with you, with losing our public safety person, Angel Ortiz, in our organization. That was a traumatic event. Staff needed support, EAP to a point—health insurance, but to be connected with people that you know that you see every day on a personal level adds tremendous value to the healing process because you’re sharing with people that you know, not necessarily people that you don’t know, that’s one area.
This year abortion rights was a big topic and was traumatic for some people here at Oak Park Public Library. We were able to have circles around abortion support, circles around that. We were able to have discussion circles around the George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor instances, and social justice issues that are going on.
More recently, we’re about to have our 5th Annual Restorative Practices Conference in 2024—early next year, where we’ll be able to address some trauma in the community. So, just many different ways that you can use circles. But addressing trauma is one that I think adds real, tremendous value to the people who participate in it, because they’re able to talk out. They’re able to see other people’s opinions and perspectives. They’re able to do it in a respectful way.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #7: These topics are very personal and surrounded by emotion. I’m sure it’s important for anyone engaging in this work to be trained to handle that. And I didn’t know there was a conference on restorative practices. Can you recommend a good jumping in place for anyone interested in this? 12:08
Stephen Jackson:
One of the first, Circle Processes, is a book that I recommend. I give it out at my trainings. Pranis is the author. She wrote it, and there’s a series called The Little Book series. It’s a Little Book of Restorative practices, Little Book of Restorative practices in schools—several books. The publisher is Living Justice Press. If you go to Living Justice Press, you can find a bunch of reading materials on circle practices and how you can implement them. You can find information about trainings, then there’s practitioners around the country, around the world actually, that you can access through that way as well, through that website.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #8: Is there anything else you’d like to share? 13:11
Stephen Jackson:
I love libraries, and we are public servants. I was just having this conversation earlier. Because we are public servants, we get it on both ends. We get it on facing the public, and how we serve the public. That can impact how we treat each other within the context of our work environment. So, restorative practices is a way of engaging where we can ensure, to the extent that we can, that we don’t cause harm with how we engage with people.
I live this. I love it, and I’m not exempt from causing harm. I always like to put that out there. Though I do these—facilitate these spaces, and I do these trainings, and I’m really heavy in the restorative community—I cause harm as well, not intentionally. People are easier to forgive someone for a mistake of judgment than they can of intention. It’s never my intention to cause harm to anybody—not unless they’re trying to cause harm to me or my family. Yes, I’m trying to protect my family, but I live this and I love this. There’s nothing I love doing more than being in-circle. By the end of the year—well by the beginning of next year, you’ll hear more about a book that I’m planning to get published around restorative practices, in particular in the library spaces as well. So, I’m really excited about sharing this information with people who are curious about it.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #9: I’m looking forward to seeing your book, and I know our listeners will be too. Everyone keep your eye out for that book by Steven Jackson. 14:45
Stephen Jackson:
One more piece on that—a lot of you in the library spaces are doing restorative work already. You’re just not coining that. You’re not naming it—restorative. You’re not naming it. Know that once you assess, and you look at some of the things you’re already doing, most organization’s mission, vision and values are restorative. But how are we executing these mandates, these guiding principles of how we’re supposed to show up? There’s a piece of that there too. So, understand that we all are doing restorative practices in a way, but to be more intentional and deliberate in doing them creates a space where you are less likely to cause harm.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #10: That’s a good point. I’d like to refer listeners to an article you wrote in Public Libraries Magazine called Embracing Restorative Practices and Leadership Fostering Trust and Growth, which is a great place to start for those of us who are already likely engaging in restorative practices, but want to put that into a framework. In addition to your article and upcoming book, do you have any favorite management or leadership books or resources and why? 15:31
Stephen Jackson:
My trusty favorite books are The Power of Now, and The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People—that is one of my go-tos, because I used to read it annually, not so much anymore. My life got a little bit busier and I am not able to do pleasure reading as much as I want to, but I think I’ve read it for so many years that it’s in me, and is just what I do, but that is a really good foundational book. Just reread it, if you’ve read it already. There’s just so many different examples of how we can be effective leaders.
One particular story in the book—they were talking about a painting on the wall. Depending on how close you are to the painting—your perspective depends on what you see. That right there, really resonated with me—one of the things that resonated with me in that book. Opening our minds to what’s possible, sitting down and actively listening—these restorative practices help you get to those spaces. Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is one of those books that has a lot of those sort of practices ingrained in them.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #11: Thank you. We all bring unique perspectives to every situation. With that Steven, in closing, what do libraries mean to you personally? 17:07
Stephen Jackson:
They are everything. Libraries are the community centers for communities that don’t have community centers. Libraries are connecting spaces for people who don’t have connection. Libraries to me, like I said, are everything. It’s an honor to be working with them. I never thought in a million years—most people that do work in library contexts, they never thought in a million years. Most people that aren’t librarians never thought—I was talking to someone this morning. It was like, man, I never knew libraries. So I was like, I know, right? So libraries are awesome. If I had to sum it up, libraries are awesome in so many ways.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Libraries are awesome. While many of us may be accidental librarians, we bring to the profession what you’re talking about an intention to create places of trust, growth, and dialogue. I appreciate you being here with me today to talk about the topic of restorative practices, to help us do just that.
Stephen Jackson:
I appreciate being here.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
You’ve been listening to Library Leadership podcast. This is Adriane Herrick Juarez. For more episodes, tune in to Library Leadership Podcast.com, where you can now subscribe to get episodes delivered right to your email inbox. Our producer is Nathan Sinclair Vineyard. Thanks for listening. We’ll see you next time.
We would like to thank the Park City Library for their dedicated support of this show. The opinions expressed on this show are those of the speaker and do not necessarily reflect the views of Library Leadership podcast or our sponsors.