Oyate Hotanin
Report date
July 2023
What has been most instrumental to your progress?
Collective Leadership: Over past year, we have ridden a huge wave of change in our work with Ramsey County, whose system-led Transforming Systems Together (TST) initiative has a stated aim of community-system partnership to effect change across all county systems. On its surface, TST appeared to be inspired by IN Equality practices and successes. In reality, the model continues to center County approaches as the County funds and influences community-organizing work. This dynamic is leading us to evolve our efforts and deepen our commitment to collective leadership. This commitment – both inside our community networks and in our relationships with County officials and staff – helps us keep our head above water and stay true to our vision. The conversations inherent in collective leadership gave us the space to reflect on the changing terrain and the diversity of perspectives we needed to assess accurately and adapt. We landed gracefully on shore and have headed out on a new wave.
We stayed involved in system transformation committees to support community voices the County has brought to the table and orient them to issues, challenges, and opportunities.
We stayed involved in system transformation committees to support community voices the County has brought to the table and orient them to issues, challenges, and opportunities.
Adaptability: New directions: Under the darkened pandemic sun, wildfires are burning and the sparks of social justice are ablaze.
Oyate Hotanin assembled an independent and multi-cultural group of individuals from diverse communities who have been negatively affected by the inadequate and detrimental systems of economics, education, health, and justice that operate in this country. We have worked intensively to surface a human-based response to social struggles -- big and small – created by those systems. Our work seeks to join hands, hearts, and minds to explore possibilities when restorative practices are re-infused with Dakota and Indigenous methods and values.
We are currently exploring partnerships that have strong potential to create systemic change. After a year-plus of monthly gatherings and conversations, what began as an exploration of a Repair Circle model focused on transformation of the criminal justice system has since opened up to the possibility of infusing the model as transformation within in any large system in which inequities, injustices, or barriers to effective collaboration exist: education, government, tribal communities, and cultural communities.
Oyate Hotanin assembled an independent and multi-cultural group of individuals from diverse communities who have been negatively affected by the inadequate and detrimental systems of economics, education, health, and justice that operate in this country. We have worked intensively to surface a human-based response to social struggles -- big and small – created by those systems. Our work seeks to join hands, hearts, and minds to explore possibilities when restorative practices are re-infused with Dakota and Indigenous methods and values.
We are currently exploring partnerships that have strong potential to create systemic change. After a year-plus of monthly gatherings and conversations, what began as an exploration of a Repair Circle model focused on transformation of the criminal justice system has since opened up to the possibility of infusing the model as transformation within in any large system in which inequities, injustices, or barriers to effective collaboration exist: education, government, tribal communities, and cultural communities.
Our Networks: Drawing from our collective networks, our Repair Circle design team has completed over 95 hours of collective conversation and learning, including intensive sessions with 3 respected Native healers and teachers. We are arriving at a place of shared understanding of the nature of the human experience, healing, and growth, informing our work to name and describe the core elements of our Repair Circle model.
When a decision is being made, we always follow our collective process . We pay attention to the skill of collective leadership and don’t allow the ideal to become the enemy of the good. We neither allow ourselves to get bogged down in process nor make hasty executive-led decisions, even when that may mean forgoing opportunity. We live in the flowing river between those two worlds.
As one partner said: “Our circle is not only multicultural but also multi-generational. From the board to those involved in administration, to the Repair Circle team, we all have built a relationship with each other. We listen to each other ....Through listening, we can look at issues from many perspectives and envision a collective solution. The power of the collective is immense.
When a decision is being made, we always follow our collective process . We pay attention to the skill of collective leadership and don’t allow the ideal to become the enemy of the good. We neither allow ourselves to get bogged down in process nor make hasty executive-led decisions, even when that may mean forgoing opportunity. We live in the flowing river between those two worlds.
As one partner said: “Our circle is not only multicultural but also multi-generational. From the board to those involved in administration, to the Repair Circle team, we all have built a relationship with each other. We listen to each other ....Through listening, we can look at issues from many perspectives and envision a collective solution. The power of the collective is immense.
Key lessons learned
The forces of change in the County are well intentioned but challenging to our approach. The County has made bold investments in community voice over 2 years, informed by our demonstrated impact in transformation. A significant challenge awaits the County’s approach of taking a lead in community organizing: who facilitates the collective leadership necessary to make this a success; and how does the community voice stay autonomous and lead change when the County is the funding source?
While we applaud the County’s intention, we see that when the system pays for and oversees community engagement, its dominance becomes embedded and community members are co-opted and disempowered, inhibiting true transformation. We have witnessed a lack of centralized leadership as community members wait for County leaders to “grant” them decision-making power: true power-sharing has been absent or has surfaced only in fleeting moments.
IN Equality pulled our energies away from the JDAI table (renamed Youth Justice Transformation) and focus on what we see as the next true frontier of transformation of government services: community-led alternative paradigms & skills in problem solving.
While we applaud the County’s intention, we see that when the system pays for and oversees community engagement, its dominance becomes embedded and community members are co-opted and disempowered, inhibiting true transformation. We have witnessed a lack of centralized leadership as community members wait for County leaders to “grant” them decision-making power: true power-sharing has been absent or has surfaced only in fleeting moments.
IN Equality pulled our energies away from the JDAI table (renamed Youth Justice Transformation) and focus on what we see as the next true frontier of transformation of government services: community-led alternative paradigms & skills in problem solving.
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Reflections on the community innovation process
Where true innovation happens, inclusiveness, collaboration, and resourcefulness are interwoven. We can’t easily separate one element from the other in our work, “inclusiveness” has the greatest impact. In criminal justice reform, system sectors (e.g., probation, police, and prosecutors) have historically worked together, intending to improve outcomes for individuals and increase community safety. These systems have also been resourceful in securing funding for their work. What they have lacked, however, is true partnership with community or a deep understanding of community needs. What we continue to bring to the table creates the conditions for innovation and meaningful, sustainable transformation: a community lens that shows how system-driven practices play out for individuals and families. Does a child return from confinement restored and rejuvenated, or more isolated, destabilized, and vulnerable? Typically, the latter. How is the child’s family doing? Typically, worse. The process of including, rather than discounting, impacted community inspires hope in our families and leads to real and long-lasting solutions being put on the policy table for conversation and funding.
Progress toward an innovation
Something major is occurring within the arena of criminal justice transformation. A metamorphosis of understanding is underway, while at the same time the head winds of racist beliefs, intolerance and desire for autocratic control are returning with a vengeance. Elected and appointed officials now often join IN Equality’s vision of the change we seek. At the same time, action toward meaningful change stumbles and we struggle for a foothold. We have achieved significant successes through policies and actions we helped shape over the past 15 years of our unique community-system partnership: We no longer funnel more than 3,000 young people a year through our detention center iron doors, pushing them into a harsh and flawed system. Our next level of work, however, involves stopping the flow of our community members into adult incarceration settings, ending long and inhumane sentences, and humanizing inhumane settings. The current political climate and the realities behind adult incarceration are stubborn and difficult to rectify. We believe American Indian thinking, in partnership with other minds rooted in diverse cultures, is our path for surfacing and reclaiming a true alternative to healing, balance and problem solving.
What it will take to reach an innovation?
We believe the best path forward is our process: engage in continual conversation and exchanges, take action and reflect, and repeat. We stand by this process and our beliefs. There are always lessons learned, challenges we don’t expect, and sometimes dramatic changes in the landscape around any innovation. Allowing for relationships and insights from many directions will always help us continue to move forward. Our process has always included taking ongoing advice from each other, from our network, and from the people who disagree with us. We will continue to embrace that.
What's next?
We are making notable progress with our Repair Circles model. We have accelerated planning, gained commitment from a solid team of experienced practitioners, developed a design-pilot-implement timeline, and begun intensive, monthly design meetings. July – September ‘23 we will begin initial testing of the method and creating an implementation manual. A full year of piloting of the model with a small number of cases, will begin Oct ‘23 and launching the full model in expected fall ‘24. No
If you could do it all over again...
We believe the best path forward is our process: engage in continual conversation and exchanges, take action and reflect, and repeat. We stand by this process and our beliefs. There are always lessons learned, challenges we don’t expect, and sometimes dramatic changes in the landscape around any innovation. Allowing for relationships and insights from many directions will always help us continue to move forward. Our process has always included taking ongoing advice from each other, from our network, and from the people who disagree with us. We will continue to embrace that.
One last thought
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