RIPPLES
OF RELATIONSHIP
RIPPLING OUTWARD.
Restorative justice invites us to understand justice as nurturing and re-establishing worth and interconnectedness. People are relational beings. Our well-being is nurtured or diminished through our relationships with ourselves, one another, our communities, and the wider world.
The Ripples of Relationship framework helps us notice these layers of relationship. It reminds us that restorative justice is not only something we turn to when harm has happened. It is a way of being that influences how we live, learn, work, make decisions, and respond to one another every day.
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This diagram is shown in an educational context, but the framework can be adapted for many people, roles, and communities. A similar set of ripples could be explored from the perspective of students, families/caregivers, school staff, community members, or organizations.
BEGINNING WITH SELF.
The first ripple is our relationship with self.
This does not mean that restorative justice is individualistic or only about personal growth. It means that how we understand our own worth, needs, identity, assumptions, responsibilities, and impact shapes how we show up in relationship with others.
When we are disconnected from ourselves, we may more easily measure, judge, dismiss, control, or avoid others. When we are willing to reflect honestly on our own ways of being, we become more able to honour the worth and interconnectedness of those around us.
Beginning with self is not the same as ending with self. The ripples continue outward. Our beliefs, values, words, decisions, and actions affect the people and communities around us.
QUESTIONS THAT GUIDE US.
The Ripples of Relationship framework invites ongoing reflection. Three questions help guide this reflection:
Am I honouring?
Am I measuring?
What message am I sending?
To honour someone is to relate to them as worthy. To measure someone is to judge, objectify, or reduce them according to our own expectations, assumptions, or needs. Asking what message we are sending helps us consider the impact of our words, actions, policies, routines, and decisions from the perspective of those affected.
These questions can be used personally, professionally, and collectively. They can help us reflect on relationships with students, colleagues, families/caregivers, community members, organizations, curriculum, policy, land, and the wider environment.
They also remind us that restorative justice is not something we apply only to others. It asks us to examine how our own ways of being either honour or diminish worth and interconnectedness.
Reflect:
Where am I honouring worth and interconnectedness?
Where might I be measuring, judging, or reducing someone’s worth?
What message might others be receiving from my words, actions, decisions, or silence?
How are my relationships rippling outward into the communities I am part of?