The Estes Valley Restorative Justice Program, led by Program Coordinator Megan Graper and Program Director Jay Shields, works to build and connect the community in Estes Park through its many programs, which emphasize conversation, respect, and understanding.
“It’s really about bringing the community together to help solve solutions and ultimately making the community much more transparent, with higher communication, and ultimately safer,” Shields said.
Graper holds a master’s degree in legal and forensic psychology and moved to Estes Park from Southern California in February. While she had visited Colorado before her move, she had never been to Estes Park, and she said she felt really lucky to have ended up here.
“Nowhere is really like Estes Park. It’s so beautiful, and the people here are awesome. It’s a great department to be part of,” said Graper.
Shields has worked in seven national parks around the country. He retired from the parks service in Estes Park in December before re-entering the workforce as the EVRJP Program Director in August. Shields said his last role was quite similar to his new role in terms of accountability and responsibility; however, there is one main difference in the context of restorative justice.
“We actually get to see through the program how people can grow and hold themselves accountable for the harms that they’ve committed,” said Shields.
Within EVRJP, there are four program divisions: justice-based, school-based, conflict resolution, and community conversations. The EVRJP is embedded within the police department, and most of its cases are referred to it by the police department, the Estes Valley Fire Protection District, the district attorney’s office, or the county court.
The program also features an online conflict resolution request form, allowing individuals to submit their own issues and describe the services they are seeking.
Justice-based programs
Justice-based programs have two primary systems for addressing the harms caused by crime. Community-group conferencing brings together the victim, offender, and community, allowing them to identify the harm and develop ways to repair it. Re-entry circles help previously incarcerated individuals reintegrate into the community.
School-based programs
School-based programs focus on living room conversations, a dialogue model that facilitates connection and understanding, student support and accountability circles, and a student-led club for discussions.
“The idea behind living room conversations is so that they learn new skills and then are able to take them and have these conversations within their own living rooms,” said Graper. “They see that them coming together as a student body—and of course, adults are there to support and lead it—really empowers them, and in future situations helps them not to feel so stuck.”
Conflict resolution services
Another division, conflict resolution services, includes facilitated conversations, mediation, and conflict coaching. Common conflicts the program addresses include tenant-landlord disputes and noise complaints.
Before mediating conflicts, Shields and Graper meet with individual parties to discuss their hopes and expectations for the outcome, and then proceed to group mediation. Graper said that this process helps community members prepare to address conflicts with a clear path to move forward, as opposed to putting one person on the defensive.
A facilitation tactic the program uses is keeping conversations and questions open, allowing the parties to navigate the conflict themselves with the guidance of a neutral third party.
“We’re not coaching them on what the solution is. It’s really about coaching them to come to those solutions together,” said Shields.
Conflict-resolution services are not always one-on-one neighbor disputes, however. They often involve different businesses and government boards within Estes Park.
“In a small community, that really matters because what a business does or what a board does is going to affect the residents and vice versa,” said Graper. “It just helps us to stay the community that we are and really respect one another.”
Community Conversations
The Community Conversations program is a partnership between EVRJP and the Estes Valley Library addressing community issues through respectful listening and engagement. Currently, the EVRJP and the EVL are collaborating to facilitate conversations with the community about the Town of Estes Park’s Development Code update, which aims to align with the Town’s 2022 Comprehensive Plan.
Two public deliberations, one tonight and one next Wednesday, Oct. 15, at the Estes Park High School Commons, have been scheduled to help the Estes Park community address issues related to updating the Town’s Development Code.
According to the registration form, the goal is to “bring community members together across perspectives to identify common ground and ways to move forward on the challenging issue of housing.”
While residents have diverse perspectives on many community issues, Graper emphasized the importance of a “willingness to listen.”
“When you look at our political climate, people feel so stuck and divided, and it’s really easy to get pulled into that. However, when you have these skills, you realize, hey, there’s a broader perspective,” said Graper. “How do we work together to come up with the solution that’s best for us all?”
Through their work with the EVRJP, Graper and Shields shared a similar sentiment of enjoying watching people grow and move forward from their experiences, rather than internalizing them.
“I think my hope and dream is that people continue to recognize restorative justice as a tool for them to become better and to engage more with their neighbors, with the business owners, with their employees, and overall, really just increase the culture of we don’t need to have differences of opinion separate or divide us,” said Shields. “We really just need to look at those as opportunities to engage and come closer.”
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