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SULAH

Sulah offers restorative approaches to identity-based harm across conflict and crime when someone’s identity or aspects of their identity underpins the harm.

People come from a range of backgrounds and experiences which inform or impacts instances of harm. Some examples of relevant identities to situations of harm include race, immigration status, age, socio-economic status, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, and ability.

To view a recent report outlining our accomplishments, click HERE.

Identity-based Harm Mediation Services

Sulah supports people to have hard conversations with themselves and others around harm that center’s identity through mediations, facilitated dialogue, Dialogue Circles and other forms of opportunities for interactions.

Trained facilitators and mediators can support individuals and groups grappling with identity to come together. Sulah can support exploration and decision-making around a range of topics that may include: needs assessments, cultivating understanding, repairing harm, restoring relationships, facilitating the creation of plans for being in relationship, fostering accountability.

Who is Sulah for?

Sulah is for community members that:

Have engaged, caused, or were involved in a circumstance characterized by identity-based harm.
Have experienced identity-based harm.
Are supporting those who have either engaged in or experienced identity-based harm.
Are interested in preventing identity-based harm in their respective relationships and communities.

What does a Sulah Process look like?

Referral

A referral is made to Sulah by individuals or service providers.
It can include a range of other invitations.

Coordinator Connecting with Parties

SULAH Service Coordinator speaks with all interested parties to get an overview of the issue and to gauge interest and appropriateness in a SULAH process.

Conversations with Facilitators

Trained facilitators are assigned and hold individual meetings with each interested party. One or more meetings are held individually in order to adequately prepare everyone for a dialogue with the others involved.

Additional Conversations or Circle

One or more meetings or Circles take place with participants.

Sharing Agreement

Where appropriate and with consent, if an agreement is reached by the parties, the agreement can be shared with the referral source.

Follow Up

A few weeks after the last interaction with facilitators, a Sulah staff person will follow up to check-in with participants.

Values

Dignity, Fairness, Understanding, Reflection, Empowerment, Accountability and Restoration

Where can referrals come from?

Sulah welcomes referrals from a variety of avenues that may encounter identity-based harm. This includes but is not limited to:

Directly from community members
Community Agencies & Social Service Organizations, supporting folks experiencing distress

Waterloo Regional Police Services
Schools and Education Centers
Crown Attorneys
Spaces of Gathering

(ex. Faith spaces, Cultural groups, Affinity Groups, Events, Community Centers, etc.)

Workplaces

What does Sulah offer?

Sulah offers prevention and intervention services that are grounded in restorative approaches to identity and identity-based harm. Sulah facilitators are equipped with trauma-informed approaches and culturally competent care to walk alongside participants and their encounters with harm.

What are Sulah’s Prevention Services?

Sulah offers support to prevent identity-based harm through relationship-building by making room for dialogue and conversations

Establishing and building meaningful relationships with those we share spaces with can provide a foundation for acceptance and belonging. Communities can request Sulah’s support to enter facilitated conversations that invite the exploration of our perceptions/assumptions of each other and shift towards greater understanding of lived experiences. In these services some of the activities that may be drawn upon include: Dialogue Circles, facilitated learning, presentations etc.

Examples of instances where prevention services may be recruited include:

Communities looking to further strengthen capacities for difficult conversations around identity.
Organisations interested in unpacking identity in an effort to prevent work-related identity-based harm.

What are Sulah’s Intervention Services?

Sulah offers restorative opportunities through intervention services in situations of conflict or crime where harm has occurred that is primarily related to identity.

With deep recognition that punishment will not undo or unlearn discrimination, Sulah is committed to non-punitive approaches to fostering communities of acceptance and belonging. Sulah sees interpersonal relations as critical for building understanding across difference. Sulah holds space for folks who may have contributed to identity-based harm, those that may have been impacted by it and/or others involved to access the types of support that may be best suited for them. Some potential facilitations used in intervention services include: face-to-face mediations, shuttle mediations, surrogacy mediations, 1-1 supports, Dialogue Circles etc.

Examples of instances where intervention services may be recruited include:

Harm that resulted from a party targeting (impacting, causes, something) a(n) individual(s) based on identity.

Ex. Someone feeling fearful when mocked on the street for wearing a Yamika

Consequences because of a reaction to comments or actions targeting identity.

Activities Sulah Facilitates

Face-to-Face Mediation: after independent meetings with co-mediators, the parties are invited to come together for face-to-face mediation where they are supported to share perspectives, develop clarity & understanding followed by options and to make decisions.

Shuttle Mediation: after independent meetings with co-mediators, the parties are invited to occupy separate spaces between which the co-mediators shuttle information back and forth to share perspectives, develop clarity & understanding followed by options and to make decisions

Surrogacy Mediation: In the absence of a directly involved party, a community member with shared lived experience and/or components of identity with the individual/community that was harmed sits in place of a direct party in a supported dialogue process

Circles (relationship-building Circle, Harm Circle, Grief Circle): A Circle provides an opportunity for participants to reflect deeply on their own experiences and to benefit from the sense of community and shared experience that develops when they share within the Circle context.  The Circle is not a form of counselling and not an opportunity for back-and-forth dialogue, but rather allows for the building of connection as each person speaks to their personal experience.

1-1 Support: 1-1 support with Sulah at CJI invites and supports participants to understand their positionality in relation to others through deep exploration of their social location and identity. Individuals work closely with restorative justice practitioners in the Sulah program to articulate their needs and priorities in an effort to build self-awareness during times of conflict. Participants are offered tools and frameworks to recognize and articulate their pain points as well as skills to respond to and manage conflict and harm in new ways.

Facilitated Learning / Presentations: Sulah can offer presentations and workshops tailored to your audience needs ranging from size, topics explored and method of delivery ranging from introduction to Sulah, Restorative Justice 101 and addressing particular forms of identity-based harm through restorative approaches.