On accreditation

Accreditation: Under the sage tutelage of our mothers at Restorative Response Baltimore, Collective Climb has formally completed its requisite training to become restorative circle keepers. Restorative Response Baltimore is regarded as one of the vanguards of community based safety and restorative justice in the world. Through our week long training, our team took a deep dive into the theory and application of a restorative mindset. And we graduate this instruction with both measurable insights, such as on how to programmatically conduct a victim-offender conference through the use of Affective Statements, but also immeasurable ones as well. For how can we quantify the distinctly palatial feeling of hearing poet and mother superior, Sonia Sanchez, announce “Cuz I am a black woman, I am deep black soil” (emphasis added). Equipped with these knowable and unknowable matters, we now look to begin the heart of our work: building community and empowering youth. In the works, is a first of its kind, inter Penn and West Philadelphia “hangout” for members of our Department of Safety, officers of the adjacent princints, representatives of Penn’s scholarly community, and most importantly, the brilliant youth of YEAH! Philly. We also completed a nonprofit leadership summit with the University of Pennsylvania Netter Center and Race Literacy Training with Lion’s Story.