CJI’s Facilitated Dialogue program provides adults impacted by sexual harm with restorative justice tools and processes to address their safety, healing and justice needs.
Services are voluntary and at no cost for residents of Waterloo Region and Wellington County. Otherwise there will be a fee for service. Please see information package for details.
Facilitated Dialogue (FD) enables people impacted by sexual violence to continue in their healing process. FD’s bring individuals and families together in a safe way to be heard, develop understanding and find a way to move forward through the devastation of sexual trauma. This process can be used by persons who have survived sexual trauma, and those who have caused sexual harm and/or their families.
CJI staff and volunteers trained in sexual trauma and sexual offending behaviour guide these conversations to ensure safety and respect for all involved. Interactions may include face-to-face meetings, letter writing, or video conferencing.
Due to the complexity of these situations, FD usually involves several meetings or other forms of contact, often over a period of months. In preparation for a FD, trained facilitators meet with each participant to ensure safety and respect for all involved. When participants are ready, they may write letters, meet face-to-face, or talk by video call.
Facilitated Dialogue is not
Want to find out more about this program? Please consult the Facilitated Dialogue Information Package at this link.
CJI also offers Revive support groups for people impacted by sexual harm. More information here.
Our Facilitated Dialogue service is experiencing funding challenges. We are actively seeking other funding sources for this critical work. If you are interested in financially supporting this work, donations are always welcome.
As of March 2025 CJI is not accepting any new referrals for Facilitated Dialogue due to these funding limitations. When current cases have been completed, new referrals will be accepted from our waiting list. In the meantime, you can refer to our information package for more information about our service.
After you review the information package, if you would like to be contacted once new FD services resume, please email revive@cjiwr.com and ask to be added to our Facilitated Dialogue waiting list.
If you require more immediate services, please reach out to your local crisis support services, look for local services through the Ending Sexual Violence Association of Canada, or review the resources at the end of our information package.
CJI’s mediators are trained and supervised volunteers who have completed the Transformative Mediation Training through Conrad Grebel University College. Mediators work in pairs, co-facilitating with each other. This allows for a matching of skills and experience. The mediators support each other and the participants through the process
Mediation works best if all people involved in a situation participate. Offenders are crucial to the process in that they can answer victims’ questions and can talk with the victim about ways to repair the emotional and material harm (to the degree that it is possible). The process can also be beneficial to the offender as s/he is able to take direct and personal accountability for their actions, as well as learn directly from the victim about the consequences of their actions.
Protecting participants’ safety is our first concern. Our service carefully screens cases for safety before they meet face-to-face. Our mediators also use strategies and specific techniques to ensure that participants are safe. After all options have been exhausted, the face-to-face meeting does not happen if the participants do not feel safe.
No. We do not believe in mediating sexual harm. Instead, Facilitated Dialogue is about exploring and working toward meeting the survivor’s needs, which may include a direct dialogue with the person who harmed them. Survivors may seek FD to as questions of the person who harmed them, or they might want the opportunity to share the impact the harm had on them. For the person who caused harm, they are offered the opportunity to take responsibility for the harm they caused by better understanding it’s impact and being able to meet any needs that arise from the dialogue.
Revive has several volunteers who act as surrogates who may be available to have a dialogue with.
Revive has several volunteers who act as surrogates who may be available to have a dialogue with.
The beautiful thing about Facilitated Dialogue is that it moves at the pace of the participants readiness. Some cases are completed in 6 months and others take years as participants request breaks from the process and continue with it again when they are ready.
Facilitated Dialogue is a survivor initiated process, meaning that we will not cold call survivors to invite them into this process. However, we encourage you to still connect with us to explore alternative options for your request to participate in this process.
Any party is welcome to stop or pause the process at any time.
We will work with you to help you identify what your healing and justice needs are. If these needs are better met by going to the police, we will not initiate a dialogue process. We will not start the dialogue process until you are certain that this process will meet your needs.
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