A Guide To Training Potential Volunteers

Acknowledgements

There are several people who should be acknowledged for the time and work they have devoted to developing this resource. One of the individuals who first recognized the need to develop greater inter-regional consistency in the area of training was Rev. Hugh Kirkegaard. It was also Rev. Kirkegaard who, until recently, provided the leadership that saw the Circles of Support and Accountability project become a national Canadian program. His experience is reflected throughout this document.

Evan Heise, David Dyck, and Andrew McWhinnie also provided expertise. As regional consultants for Circles, they each wrote major portions of this manual and provided ongoing feedback as it took shape. A final note of acknowledgement must be given to Rev. David Molzahn who assumed a national leadership role for Circles of Support and Accountability in the fall of 2000. Rev. Molzahn was the catalyst in bringing the project to completion in its present form.

A heart-felt thank you is owed to each of these individuals and, beyond them, to all others across the country who have contributed in many other ways to the ongoing development of Circles of Support and Accountability.

Introduction

The Purpose and History of This Manual

This manual, Circles of Support and Accountability: A Guide to Training Potential Volunteers, is the first of its kind. It builds on the previous operations manual produced by the Mennonite Central Committee Ontario and the Correctional Service Canada (1996, revised 2000) and on the work of the Victim/Survivor Advisory Team associated with the Winnipeg initiative.

Circles of Support & Accountability(COSA)^{Footnote 1} represent an innovative response to a controversial social issue in our society. The purpose of this manual is to assist in the training of volunteers who are willing to become a part of a Circle of Support and Accountability for warrant expiry sex offenders. This document is also an initial attempt at a distillation of the work and wisdom of many individuals across Canada who have worked with this still relatively new initiative. Its creation was occasioned by a recognition of the increasing need to develop greater consistency in the process and standards of orienting and training potential volunteers and professionals.

The need for such a guide is a testimony to the success of Circles of Support and Accountability (COSA). Indeed, the rapid growth of COSA is clear evidence that this program is becoming a grass-roots "movement" with strong links to community-based organizations throughout the country. At the same time it is important to acknowledge that no manual can fully capture the spirit of such a movement or the learning that happens when people gather together to create community in this way. As such, this manual is intended as a guide to starting Circles and is offered with the full recognition that learning is a continuous process.

For the past three years, Correctional Service Canada (CSC) Chaplaincy has played a critical role in this burgeoning movement by investing in COSA to help communities respond to the needs of high-risk sex offenders. Initially, a contract position focused on the promotion and development of COSA initiatives through an established network of Community Chaplaincies and community-based ministries across Canada.

In the fall of 1998, individuals from across the nation who were interested in COSA gathered for a series of meetings in Crieff Hills, Ontario. Establishing seed funding for COSA projects was an important topic of discussion at that meeting as was the recognition that training and support resources were needed. This document, which includes training modules and suggestions for training formats, was developed in response to those initial discussions as well as to needs which have been articulated in the intervening years.

An experiential approach is recommended when planning training sessions based on the modules found in this manual. Role-plays, group discussion, and interactive exercises form an important part of this type of training. For further resources, please refer to Appendix A (How do Adults Learn?), and Appendix B (The Experiential Learning Cycle).

The Origins of Circles of Support & Accountability

In 1994 newly passed detention legislation created a dilemma. In two separate incidents resulting from it the faith community responded to the needs of the community, the CSC, and those deemed to be the highest risk to re-offend. That response evolved into the program now called "Circles of Support and Accountability".

The dilemma consisted in the fact that an offender was detained to the last day of his sentence (warrant expiry day or WED) and did not have access to any supports or monitoring mechanisms to assist with his safe adjustment to the community. In both of the original instances, the detained offenders had previous involvement with faith community volunteers and programs. The COSA response grew out of their significant history of involvement with the faith community in prison.

Early in 1994, a pastor/director (Rev. Harry Nigh) of an inner city ministry in Hamilton was called by a prison psychologist regarding an offender who had identified this pastor as one of his few friends in the community. The friendship had evolved from contacts more than a decade earlier when both were involved in a prison visitation program. The pastor realized that this soon to be released offender needed more support than he would be able to deliver on his own. Consequently, he rallied some others who knew the offender and requested their help to offer support.

Anger greeted the offender upon his release. The media and community response was so hostile that the offender's needs were exacerbated. The pastor asked a few more volunteers to become a part of the support group and invited a concerned community member from Neighbourhood Watch to join as well. Her role was to ensure that any support would be responsible and lead to greater community safety.

During those first six months, a Correctional Service of Canada's Community Chaplain (Rev. Hugh Kirkegaard) in Toronto followed the developments in Hamilton closely. Later that year a similar opportunity presented itself in Toronto. In this case, a high profile offender was released to a community outside Toronto where a church and some Alcoholics Anonymous partners were prepared to receive and support him as he re-entered society. However, within days the mounting pressure in this smaller community combined with the individual's medical needs forced a move to Toronto. The church volunteer involved with this individual called the chaplain in Toronto for help.

Again, the personal needs of the person in question and the demands placed on him by the community and the Court were such that several volunteers were required to offer support. The chaplain, informed by the Hamilton experience, pulled together a group of committed individuals from various church contacts to walk with this person through the crisis.

During the following months, the chaplain and the Hamilton pastor compared notes and mused on their common experiences. They realized that these interventions calmed the anxiety in the community and that the former offenders adjusted positively to the community. They recognised that the two men were not falling into dangerous patterns of behaviour and instead had successfully re-entered the community.

Their discussions grew to include several people involved in the support groups and a few others who worked with sex offenders and survivors of sexual abuse. From these early experiences and after thoughtful reflection the program emerged that we now call COSA.

What is A Circle of Support & Accountability? - A Definition

CSC Chaplaincy defines a Circle of Support and Accountability as:

A group of 4 - 7* primarily faith-based community volunteers, who are committed to enhancing public safety by supporting community re-entry through: covenanting, meeting and walking daily with a person who has been detained to end of sentence because of a sexual offence history. (*more may be needed in some circumstances")

Mission Statement and Core Values

The mission of COSA is to substantially reduce the risk of future sexual victimisation of community members by assisting and supporting released individuals in their task of integrating with the community and leading responsible, productive, and accountable lives. The core values on which this initiative was founded and which continue to guide us in the pursuit of our mission are as follows:

• We affirm that the community bears a responsibility for the safe restoration and healing of victims as well as the safe re-entry of released sex offenders to the community.
• We believe in a loving and reconciling Creator who calls us to be agents in the work of healing.
• We acknowledge the ongoing pain and need for healing among victims and survivors of sexual abuse and sexual assault.
• We seek to "recreate community" with former offenders in responsible, safe, healthy, and life-giving ways.
• We accept the challenge of radical hospitality, sharing our lives with one another in community and taking risks in the service of love.

Restorative Justice and Circles of Support & Accountability

COSA initiatives are grounded in a commitment to the principles of restorative justice. Circle volunteers and coordinators seek to take seriously the needs and concerns of the victims and community as well as those of the offender. The safety of the community and potential victims is imperative if there is to be restoration in the community. A restoration of peace must be realized for true community safety to be enhanced. This is a key motivating factor for COSA.

Recently, Howard Zehr (Winchester, England, April 2001) offered a definition of what Restorative Justice is, and what it is not.

Restorative Justice Is:

• a redefinition of roles in the Criminal Justice System, placing the victims of crime at the center;
• best used with serious crime, such as interventions with federal parolees;
• appropriate for minor crimes, but often even more so for serious crime where the needs of victims are similar and in greater need of being addressed;
• an attempt to address the needs and causes of crime. In so doing, this approach brings to bear two fundamental principles:
• Harm: Restorative Justice addresses the harm caused by crime by addressing victim's needs, and by holding the offender accountable in terms of the harm done.;
• Engagement: Restorative Justice engages victims, offenders and the community in the process of addressing the harms done by crime.

Restorative Justice is not:

• forgiveness or reconciliation, even though restorative processes may open the door to them;
• "mediation", because mediation implies a certain moral equality between parties, which typically does not exist between victims and offenders. At the same time, victim-offender dialogue programs (often called Victim Offender Mediation or Victim-Offender Reconciliation) offer one possible expression of restorative justice, one process or avenue through which to promote healing or restoration in some situations.
• a program or a blueprint. It is a philosophy, a compass, not a map.
• a recent fad or myth. It is found deeply imbedded in the religious and cultural past of the vast majority of societies the world over.
• the opposite of Retributive Justice. The contrast is a false one. Both approaches agree that offenders owe something and victims need redress. The currency is different. Justice from a retributive perspective says, "pain", while restorative justice says, "healing". The legal system is still needed, and must be understood as a continuum. It is also true that restorative processes are not as "soft" or "easy" as they are often perceived to be and that the court and penal system is not as uniformly "harsh" or "tough" as it is perceived to be. Changing Lenses means changing questions and categories.

In discussing the need for more restorative responses to crime, Susan Sharpe notes that "(t)his is not to argue that the legal system should be replaced. There is an essential role for formal courtroom trials, which do things that a restorative process does not. But that does not mean that justice must be retributive. Justice, in any kind of system, should be the highest possible expression of accountability balanced with care" (emphasis ours)^{Footnote 1}.

Sharpe's comments capture well the vision that guides COSA initiatives. Circles are an attempt to engage ordinary citizens in the art of offering "accountability balanced with care." A critical feature of COSA's is that they are community initiatives owned and driven by community-based volunteers. Many -- but not all -- volunteers come from the church or faith community. These faith groups often have a natural supply of volunteers.

Community-based volunteers possess a broad range of skills and experience and many also have previous experience working with marginalized people. Creating a caring, supportive community for the former offender that is committed to the principles of responsibility, accountability and healing is vital to the goal of achieving greater community safety.

A Training & Development Flow Chart

A schematic diagram that charts the recommended processes for the recruitment, screening, and training of volunteers and the "forging" and ongoing maintenance of circles is found on page 11. The training process after the Orientation includes two Phases organized into a series of training "blocks." The remainder of this manual consists of detailed explanations of the purposes and elements of the Orientation and both phases of the Training. Detailed explanations of the purposes and elements of Circles Development can be found in this document's companion volume, Circles of Support and Accountability – A Guide to Program & Policy Development.^{Footnote 2}

You will notice that the flow chart indicates various "EXIT" points throughout the training and Circle development process. Each of these are points where potential applicants are specifically asked if they wish to continue. Those who do not may "exit" the program at any time during any stage of training or Circle development.

These "EXIT" points are also opportunities for the local initiative co-ordinator to screen out potential volunteers if the applicant is unsuitable. For instance, if a potential volunteer minimised the seriousness of sexual offending and/or violence against women or children in such a way that betrays more than mere ignorance of the issues, the co-ordinator might screen the individual out of further participation.

The training and Circle development process is itself, therefore, a screening "mechanism" used for selecting appropriate volunteers.

Attendance at Training Sessions

Attendance at six out of the seven half-day training blocks which comprise The COSA Orientation, The Core Workshop, and The Skill Building Workshop is generally considered mandatory for volunteering. Volunteers are expected to make up any sessions they have missed. Exceptions can be made on an individual basis. Keeping a careful record of attendance is highly recommended.