Suzan Swope

I was commissioned as a Detention Minister for the Archdiocese of San Francisco in 1990 and has been offering communion services and one-on-one visits to the youth in San Mateo County’s Juvenile Hall ever since. 
 
I have been trained in mediation, earning a State certification in 2005. I became aware of restorative justice in 2007. That year she took Insight Prison Project’s Victim Offender Education Program (VOEG) and began training as a facilitator for the Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP), which uses experiential workshops to teach inmates and the community how to handle conflict constructively. I became a full AVP facilitator in 2011.  In 2009, I trained in circle processes with Catholic Charities of the East Bay, taking advanced circle training with Kay Pranis and Carolyn Charleboy at Restorative Justice of the East Bay (RJOY) in 2013.   
Today, I mediate for both the Peninsula Conflict Resolution Center PCRC) and the San Mateo County Superior Court’s Juvenile Offender Mediation Program.  Since 2007 I have been a member of San Mateo County’s Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Commission, which is responsible for overseeing the administration of juvenile justice in the County.

I took this training to  become a new leader advocate (to help former incarcerated people), t o become a new leader advocate (to help support Homicide Survivors) and I will work with families who have a loved one incarcerated and previously.