Deadline to apply is this Friday!
CLICK HERE TO APPLY If you want to hear a powerful testimonial about the value this program brings, watch this video on Instagram or TiKtok
Deadline in 24 hours!
Dr. Wadhwa was featured on Executives Diary Magazine!!
This article is absolutely beautiful and is 100% worth your time to read. Just X out of the popup once you click the link and you will be able to read it.
The ripple effects of Circles are rippling!
It’s been two years since our Sisterhood Circle and we are so proud of Jacora. That group is why Anita took the leap of quitting teaching and transitioning our group into Restorative Houston. She would see some of these girls disengaged from school but plodding along in class...then she would see them light up in circle on the weekend and come to life - no cell phone distractions needed, only connection, play, discussion, food, and art. Jacora is a future legislator who inspires us regularly. She is a reminder of why our Circles are essential spaces for political education, emotional intelligence, identity development and embracement, and social skills. This is the impact of what we do. This is the power of Restorative Circles.
We are thrilled to welcome our newest board member: Unique Simmons!
Unique Simmons is an educator, youth advocate, and system disruptor committed to reimagining how we support the next generation. With a foundation in clinical counseling focused on youth and adolescents, her work lives at the intersection of mental health, research, and community-based application.
At her core, she is a builder of people and systems. She designs experiences and ecosystems that strengthen emotional intelligence, expand imagination, and empower youth to move from survival to purpose.
Alongside her community impact, she brings a strong corporate background in scaling high-performing teams, leading agile transformation, elevating multi-matrix collaboration, and developing organizational strategies that drive measurable results. Her experience spans senior leadership roles across Global Enterprise Sales, Federal IT Support, Operations Management, and HR giving her a unique ability to bridge corporate strategy with community impact.
She is deeply committed to social justice and mental wellness, and has had the privilege of teaching and facilitating across community spaces, corporations, and government organizations. Her recent partnerships with global change agents such as Belovd, Omek, and CoolxDad reflect her commitment to addressing the interconnected nature of social inequalities on a global scale.
Unique is a visionary who believes we’ve limited ourselves through near-sighted thinking and that reclaiming imagination is key to transformation. She welcomes new challenges, leads with curiosity, and approaches life as a continuous learner. She has been a very committed volunteer at Restorative Houston as well as a valued community partner through her own non-profit For the People Community. We could NOT have had a better person to become a part of our board. We are over the moon!
FIRST FULLY APPRENTICED GRADUATES HAD THEIR CEREMONY!
Congratulations to our FIRST set of FULLY apprenticed Restorative Houston circle keepers!! Step one of our training is earning a Certificate of Participation after 22 hours of in-person and online learning.
Step two is where it comes alive—apprentices take the scripts they’ve written and step into the role of Circle Keeper, facilitating a full circle from opening to closing, including debrief.
Throughout the journey, every participant receives hands-on coaching, reflection, and support.
This weekend we celebrated our first graduation for fully apprenticed Circle Keepers in a hilariously chaotic ceremony as a group of goofy misfits that are passionate about their communities. We asked them what they are most looking forward to doing with their new skill set & experience & you can listen to a few of their answers at the end of this thread on Instagram or this video on Tiktok. We are so incredibly proud of every one of our incredible apprenticed graduates & can’t wait to watch & partner with them as they make an impact in our world.
For those who could not make it, we will see you at the next one in three months!
We had a wonderful 3-Day Circle training!
We finished up the circle training from a VOD (Victim-Offender Dialogue) perspective with a bang! We are so blown away by all that we learned, the bonds that were made & are so excited about the future circles that will be created with these new tools & perspective! Thank you again to Cheryl Miller for sharing this wonderful training with us. And thank you to each and every one of the participants who took time off work & their busy lives to make it to this training. You all made it that much richer with who you are. You are ROCKSTARS!! Click here to watch an amazing testimonial from our new board member Unique Simmons on Instagram and Tiktok!
WE HAVE A SPECIAL REQUEST:
We are seeking support to send our part-time Programming & Marketing Manager, Perla Moreno—who already wears many hats and consistently goes above and beyond her role—to the biennial NACRJ Conference. Our Executive Director, Dr. Anita will be presenting on “Liberation in Motion: Moving Together through the Spiral of Youth Engagement in Restorative Justice.” This gathering brings together practitioners, systems-impacted individuals, and community organizers committed to advancing restorative justice, offering a powerful space for learning, connection, and collective transformation.
As a woman of color and a systems impacted person herself, Perla is deeply aligned with our mission and is not only a key contributor to our current work, but someone we are intentionally investing in and developing as a long-term leader within Restorative Houston. We see her growing into expanded responsibility and leadership in the years ahead, and opportunities like this are critical to her development and to the sustainability of our organization.
At this time, however, the cost of registration and lodging for this week-long conference is beyond our current budget. We are seeking a special donation to make her attendance possible—an investment not only in her growth, but in the future of our work and the communities we serve.
We are asking for $1,500 which includes lodging, travel costs and conference fees to make this happen. The conference is in New Orleans from July 7th-10th. ANY amount is highly appreciated! The deadline for donations is June 2nd. CLICK HERE TO DONATE!
UPCOMING EVENTS:
Join us at the garden for a meaningful gathering honoring motherhood in all its forms. Enjoy a heartfelt motherhood circle, live cooking demonstrations, tea time with words from our founder, and a creative flower pot painting experience for the children. You can also enjoy a DIY bouquet station available on a first come, first serve basis. 💐 Our Motherhood/Caregiver Circle starts at 10AM! REGISTER HERE
This workshop is for organizers, artists, creators, neighbors, or co-living friends who want to explore the many layers of living and working in a collective. Attend the workshop and stay after for a pop-up with Paraspace Books and a social with light bites. We'll also be introducing the Free Futurist Library, a summer-long roaming library where visitors can browse, annotate, and contribute to texts that help us chart toward a collective, liberatory future. REGISTER HERE!
