The Eau Claire County Restorative Justice Program currently has three volunteer positions available.

Victim Offender Conferencing Mediator: The role of this position is to prepare young offenders to make a meaningful and proper amends for the harm they have caused to others. The mediator is responsible for all aspects of the conferencing including engagement of victims in the process. The goal of this position is to open dialogue between victims and offenders in a safe and controlled environment.

Accountability Mentor: The role of this position is to encourage offenders to take responsibility for pre-criminal/criminal actions, to make amends to people harmed, and to develop competencies about the far reaching impact of criminal behavior. The goal of this position is to intervene as early as possible in the lives of those who offend to reduce the possibility of recidivism.

Accountability Workshop Presenter: The role of this position is to expose youth to new thinking and positive decision making skills, to present the youth with tools to help them understand how their actions impact those around them, and to work with them on lessons of accountability and positive goal setting with a developed curriculum.

Current Volunteers

Dana Brown – Dana is currently a police officer with the Altoona Police Department. He was formerly the Marketing Communications Coordinator for Northern States Power. Dana is a member of the Restorative Justice Advisory Board and is active on the Public Relations Committee. Dana has had a strong interest in the Balanced and Restorative Justice Concept for some time.  Seeing the Justice System changing and moving toward this type philosophy and innovation is part of the reason he choose to leave the business realm and work fulltime within the justice system. He believes as the professionals within the Juvenile Justice System grab a hold and really understand the Balanced and Restorative Justice Model as a philosophy rather than as just another “program” the system will make phenomenal strides to better serve the needs of our communities.

Deb Holbrook - Deb’s initial interest in Restorative Justice started when she began working with other people’s children. She worked with the Department of Corrections Foster Care and then for Foster Care in Eau Claire County. She was the Program Coordinator for Project Outreach, a program through Lutheran Social Services designed to work with the homeless. Deb currently works for the Eau Claire Area School District’s alternative education program through the Career Development Center and has been in this position for the last eleven years.

Jacob Kordash - Jacob graduated in May from the University of Wisconsin Eau Claire.  His major was sociology and his minor was family studies.  Since graduation he would like to obtain employment in the criminal justice field, but his main interest is in probation and parole.  Jake says that he became interested in Restorative Justice through his studies and wanted to learn more about the philosophy and process and is working on gaining valuable experience with clients.

Marge Quaid – Marge recently retired from a 23-year career as the Regional Director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection with the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection. As Regional Director, she directed a team of investigators and inspectors who enforced the consumer protection and weights and measures laws in a 30-county area. Much of the work done by my staff involved gaining compliance with Wisconsin laws through education of and mediation between consumers and businesses. Previous to that she taught English for 8 years to high school and junior high students in several Wisconsin school districts including Eau Claire, Menomonie, and East Troy. She is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater with a degree in English. Currently, she spends quite a bit of time volunteering for the Chippewa Valley Habitat for Humanity chapter. She is on the Board of Directors as well as the Family Selection committee. Marge feels that volunteering with the Restorative Justice program gives her an opportunity to continue to use the mediation skills she learned while she was with the Bureau of Consumer Protection. Her first assigned case with this program also put to use the mentoring skills learned while in college and during her eight years of teaching junior and senior high youth.

Marti Sanville – Marti works for the State of WI as a regional long term care ombudsman who advocates for the rights of elder citizens. She has a daughter who is an attorney in Minneapolis and a grandson who is in middle school in Elk Mound. Her interest in Restorative Justice became a priority when bureaucratic snafus within the WI penal system resulted in the incarceration and subsequent death of her son in 1998. She has learned more than she ever wanted to know about traditional criminal justice in WI and wants to help others avoid mistakes and poor choices that can lead to prison. Marti believes the Restorative Justice Program offers hope for the future of our children, our community, and society in general.

Susan Saxe - Susan has experience working in an institution for emotionally disturbed children for 10 years. She was a Reserve Deputy for the sheriff’s department for 8 years and a real estate agent for over 16 years. At the present time she is a mediator for TRY Mediation, a volunteer with the Restorative Justice Program and newly involved in Habitat for Humanity. Susan has many hobbies. She has been making clothes and enjoyed sewing since she was 12 years old. She loves working in and around her home, in the garden having both flower gardens and vegetable gardens. She likes to do many types of craft work and has a small home embroidery business. She loves to spend time reading, especially about history and also enjoys biographies and novels. She has been interested in getting involved in a program like RJ ever since Eau Claire first started talking about a program about 10 years ago or more.  She believes in the importance of the RJ philosophy and the different programs it has for helping people with their problems. She also believes that if RJ can help a few or even only one person change the direction of their lives from a destructive manner of living to a positive living pattern, the program is worth having.

Lisa VanZutphen - Lisa is the Human Resources Manager of Indianhead Foodservice Distributor.  She has a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and a Master of Science in Law with an emphasis in Dispute Resolution.  She has certificates in Conflict Management & Negotiation, Human Resources Management, and Grant Writing for Non-Profit Organizations. Lisa believes in the RJ concept and the premise that early intervention can REALLY make a difference in the lives of at-risk youth.  The opportunity for a young offender to meet with his/her victim and actually see and feel the harm s/he has caused is much more effective in promoting positive change than any other type of court-imposed punishment.  She believes that RJ can and does benefit the victim, the offender, and the entire community, our society, and our world; and, if implemented on a wide-scale basis, will make our communities safer for us all.  By dealing with young offenders, the RJ concept allows us to begin to shift our paradigm away from building more prisons as a way to cope with crime to one of building peace and healing through early intervention.

Katie Werren - Katie is a senior at the University of Wisconsin Eau Claire pursuing a major in psychology.  She is currently employed at Our House Assisted Living and has plans of being a probation or parole agent.  Katie is interested in Restorative Justice as she wants to help turn juveniles around before they are adults.  Katie wants to see youth learn responsibility at a young age to prevent committing crimes when they will be prosecuted as adults.