CIRCLE KEEPING IN INTRA-FAMILIAL SEXUAL ABUSE CASES

Monthly

NYC-DR Roundtable Breakfast

PLEASE NOTE: 

Program 8:30 AM promptly. 

Coffee and networking 8:00 AM.

CIRCLE KEEPING IN 

INTRA-FAMILIAL 

SEXUAL ABUSE CASES:

Healing the WHOLE Family System

ELIZABETH CLEMANTS

Elizabeth Clemants will discuss a restorative justice response to intra-familial child sexual abuse cases by providing an overview of the theory of circle keeping in restoring balance to families devastated by the impact of abuse.  The presentation will include information about trauma and how the indigenous practice of circle keeping is in a unique position to honor the family while holding it accountable to itself.  She will also focus on the mechanics of how Hidden Water prepares a family for this intense work, and how the preparation and the work can be used with other types of systems in a similar way.  Her remarks will address some of the wisdom coming from the different circles that are being kept and show how that wisdom is not only changing the face of healing in the CSA community, but suggest many new ways for all sorts of dispute resolvers to engage creatively with people who are in conflict. 

Elizabeth Clemants, the president

of Hidden Water, is a social worker at heart.  She has always been interested in the intersection of social work and the law.  To that end, she attended Columbia University School of Social Work, from which she graduated with an MSW and a Minor in Law.  She immediately went to work in the field of conflict resolution and has been practicing ADR since 1997.  She has founded three programs in conflict resolution, of which Hidden Water is one.  She also founded and runs Small Business Arbitration Center (SBAC), with the aim of offering truly affordable, binding conflict resolution services to small businesses and their clients.  Elizabeth is also the founder and principal trainer at Planning Change, whose mission it is to educate and empower individuals to affect meaningful change in the conflicts around them.  In addition to these programs, Elizabeth is a former ACR-GNY president (2014-2015), former senior director of the Safe Horizon Mediation Program (1998-2004).  She currently works as a mediator, a coach, a shaman, and an adjunct professor at Fordham Law School. Elizabeth regularly speaks at events and conferences.