Diversity learning · Advanced

Restorative Responses to Identity-Based Harm

Evaluate when a voluntary restorative response may be appropriate, prepare for unequal power, and build accountable repair without replacing formal protections.

About 56 minutes, plus optional practice · 4 lessons · Voluntary learning

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All diversity courses: Foundation, Intermediate, and Advanced

Course outline

Distinguish restoration from pressure to reconcile
Distinguish repair from reconciliation and forgiveness.
14 minutes
Prepare for power, access, and information boundaries
Identify a power imbalance in a proposed process.
14 minutes
Build repair that is specific and accountable
Translate a general apology into a concrete repair proposal.
14 minutes
Evaluate the process without declaring closure for others
Separate implementation, participant experience, and longer-term outcomes.
14 minutes

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What you’ll be able to do

Explore and practice

Distinguish repair from reconciliation and forgiveness.
Identify a power imbalance in a proposed process.
Translate a general apology into a concrete repair proposal.
Separate implementation, participant experience, and longer-term outcomes.

What you can take into your work

Explain the reasoning behind a response to each fictional case.
Use the course job aid to propose an observable change and a way to review it.

Create a follow-up record separating completed actions, optional feedback, unresolved concerns, and next responsibility.

Read the introduction

Evaluate when a voluntary restorative response may be appropriate, prepare for unequal power, and build accountable repair without replacing formal protections.

Restorative Responses to Identity-Based Harm — practice guide

A working aid for examining a decision, preparing a response, and checking what changed.

Evaluate when a voluntary restorative response may be appropriate, prepare for unequal power, and build accountable repair without replacing formal protections.

Keep evidence, interpretation, and proposed action distinct.
Use authorized work records only; keep private learning responses out of personnel records.
A course exercise does not replace formal policy, complaint procedures, professional assessment, or decision authority.

Create a follow-up record separating completed actions, optional feedback, unresolved concerns, and next responsibility.

Decide whether to consider the option

Identify the harm, relevant formal processes, and decision authority.
Check whether participation can be declined without penalty.
Use suitably qualified facilitation and examine independence.

Prepare before meeting

Clarify purpose, alternatives, access, support, and withdrawal.
Name power relationships and safeguards.
Explain records and confidentiality limits accurately.
Pause if the conditions cannot be established.

Write and review repair

Specify action, owner, date, and evidence of completion.
Do not require forgiveness, public testimony, or complaint withdrawal.
Separate implementation from experience and longer-term outcomes.
Redirect through appropriate channels when new harm or pressure appears.

Complete a practice record

Decision or situation: describe one concrete example and the specific part within your responsibility.
Evidence: record the observed sequence and identify what is still uncertain; do not include private course reflections or unnecessary personal details.
Proposed action: Create a follow-up record separating completed actions, optional feedback, unresolved concerns, and next responsibility.
Review: name the person responsible, an appropriate review date, and the evidence that would support continuing, revising, or stopping the change.
Return the result: explain what changed and why to the people who need that information, using an appropriate authorized channel.

Participation and course completion in this program do not count toward DHS-required training credits unless management, a director, or DHS leadership expressly approves an exception.

Sources and further reading

UNODC (2020), Handbook on Restorative Justice Programmes, second edition
Authoritative guidance on voluntary participation, safeguards, and program design. Its justice-system context is distinct from these program-authored workplace exercises.
Strang and colleagues (2013), Restorative justice conferencing systematic review
Research review on face-to-face criminal-justice conferencing. Outcomes in those studies are not evidence that a workplace identity-harm meeting will be effective or appropriate.

All research and sources across the program

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Sources and further reading

UNODC (2020), Handbook on Restorative Justice Programmes, second edition

Authoritative guidance on voluntary participation, safeguards, and program design. Its justice-system context is distinct from these program-authored workplace exercises.

Strang and colleagues (2013), Restorative justice conferencing systematic review

Research review on face-to-face criminal-justice conferencing. Outcomes in those studies are not evidence that a workplace identity-harm meeting will be effective or appropriate.