A community conference is a voluntary one-time circle process that includes everyone involved in and affected by an incident, crime, or conflict, and their respective support networks.
A trained, invested facilitator brings everyone together to provide a space and structure for people in conflict to have a dialogue with each other. Being invested simply means that while the facilitator doesn’t take a side in matters, they have everyone’s well-being in mind during the conferencing process. Each person has a voice, and everyone collectively decides how to make things right and prevent a conflict from happening again.
Participants have a chance to heal and learn from the incident, and everyone decides how to be accountable to one another. Here’s how community conferencing works in these types of conflicts: