Restorative Justice Basics With Restorative Justice on The Rise & Friends | Interactive Presentations Thursdays Starting 8/6 12:30p Pacific US/CAN

Host & Trainer Molly Rowan Leach (Guest Faculty & Co-Trainers TBA)

Molly is founder and host of Restorative Justice on The Rise, a dialogue and podcast platform just reaching its first decade of serving the movement. She has also had the opportunity and privilege of leading community justice projects in multiple counties in Colorado and has learned from BIPOC Elders and Teachers and those whose international work in dialogue and social healing have influenced social transformation in the US and beyond.

Molly has co-led and led RJ trainings off- and online and brings experience from her 1.5 years of work with a community program funded by the Restorative Justice Coalition of CO. Her insights into what works and what is missing in the modern movement, and the importance of addressing harms done by the modern movement in order to improve a true ability to hold spaces for equal voice and say across race, gender, identity and in honoring of global, Indigenous, and perspectives from the margins (and bringing them to center) is critical in her work.

Her essays have been read widely online and one of note about the transformation of a police officer was published in Oxford University's Current Debates in Peace and Conflict Studies. Her personal and ongoing trainings include Basic and Advanced Community Conferencing, RJE in Schools, Nonviolent Communication, Mentoring with Kay Pranis and Sylvia Clute, James O'Dea, and ongoing work observing Indigenous dialogues via the Language of Spirit circles led by Leroy Little Bear. She has also supported the NACRJ at three national conferences conducting interviews and acting as media lead. In addition, she has been a guest lecturer and presenter for universities and conducts one-to-one mentoring and trainings.

She is inspired by restorative justice as a grounded method to repair ourselves with compassion, love, and verdant action towards the universal values and needs we have in this human experience. Her mother was incarcerated for 15 years, with some time in Solitary Confinement, and this experience catapulted her wish to serve towards a better world for all.