Webinar: Transformative Justice

What is transformative justice? What can restorative justice thinkers, scholars and practitioners learn from the contemporary transformative justice movement? This webinar offers an introduction to transformative justice. It will also highlight leading organizers’ current work to conceptualize transformative justice praxis and create responses to intimate violence.

Guest Bios

RJ Maccani has been active in social and environmental justice movements since the late ’90s. His work over the past decade has been in the fields of transformative justice, somatic coaching, and creative arts production. While completing graduate studies at Hunter College’s Silberman School of Social Work in 2016, RJ served as the first in-house therapist for Common Justice’s restorative justice program working with young people convicted of violent felonies in Brooklyn, NY. He is currently employed as a Behavioral Health Clinician with the NYC Mental Health Service Corps and also works as a generative somatics teacher and practitioner.

Nathaniel Shara is a social justice therapist and community educator whose work focuses on healing trauma, cultivating resilience and building collective power for social change. He has spent over 15 years engaged in grassroots anti-violence organizing and education, and in recent years has focused on developing transformative justice responses to intimate violence. A graduate of the University of Washington School of Social Work, Nathan currently works with individuals and groups as a trauma therapist for survivors and perpetrators of abuse. He has been teaching with the Bay-Area-based organization Generative Somatics since 2010.

Ejeris Dixon is an organizer and political strategist with over 15 years of experience working in racial justice, LGBTQ, anti-violence, and economic justice movements. She is the Founding Director of Vision Change Win Consulting where she partners with organizations to build their capacity and deepen the impact of their organizing strategies. She also serves as a consultant with Roadmap Consulting, a national social justice consulting team. From 2010 – 2013 Ejeris served as the Deputy Director, in charge of the Community Organizing Department at the New York City Anti-Violence Project where she directed national, statewide, and local organizing and advocacy initiatives on hate violence, domestic violence, police violence, and sexual violence. From 2005 – 2010 Ejeris worked as the founding Program Coordinator of the Safe OUTside the System Collective at the Audre Lorde Project where she worked on creating transformative justice strategies to address hate and police violence. Her essay, ” Building Community Safety: Practical Steps Toward Liberatory Transformation, ” is featured in the anthology Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect? Police Violence and Resistance in the United States.