About the Community Justice Centre
The Comox Valley Community Justice Centre, established in 1998, provides three primary services to the local community: education, resolution conferences, and discrimination response. The centre is located in an accessible office in downtown Courtenay. It is led by two staff members and a dedicated team of more than sixty volunteers.
For more information on volunteering, click here.
Mission
The Comox Valley Community Justice Centre is a volunteer-powered non-profit that uses restorative justice principles and practices to support peacemaking and the resolution of conflicts for the community. This is achieved through resolution conferences, dialogue, and education.
Vision
The Comox Valley Community Justice Centre envisions a safe, inclusive, resilient, and peaceful community — a community committed to respectful dialogue, compassion, and accountable and positive transformation.
Values
Community
We recognize we are interconnected and are committed to taking care of each other.
Human dignity
We work to treat everyone with respect, support, and inclusion. We believe that people make mistakes and that is not all of who they are, and that each person has intrinsic value.
Reducing and repairing harm
We believe dialogue, compassion, equity, and accountability lead to more peaceful co-existence.
Growth
Through respectful curiosity, communication, and shared learning we strengthen our humanity, humility, and connection to one another.
The values of the Community Justice Centre are applied to both external and internal relationships.
We recognize that we live on the unceded territory of K'ómoks First Nations. We acknowledge the impact of colonization and strive to incorporate decolonization into our work.
Our Team
Volunteers
The Community Justice Centre is volunteer-powered. We have more than 60 trained volunteers who participate in restorative justice resolution conferences as administration coordinators, case coordinators, facilitators, and panel members. Volunteers also help with other areas of running the centre including general administration, communication, events, and special projects. To find out more about volunteering, click here.
Community
The Community Justice Centre works in partnership with numerous local organizations who help guide our work, assist with conflict resolution when warranted, and collaborate on community education. We thank our community partners for their collaboration.
Staff
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Karen Milstein-McKinnon
Managing Director
manager@communityjusticecentre.ca
Karen tends to the general operations of the centre, including care of the volunteers, the space, the financials, community engagement, program delivery and building and nurturing partnerships.
Karen has had a lifelong commitment to social justice and was introduced to Restorative Justice in her teenage years by a family member who worked in the field. She holds a Master of Communications degree and has built on her education with courses on change management, facilitation, participatory leadership, anti-racism, Art of Hosting, Cultivating Safe Spaces and Restorative Justice.
Before joining the Community Justice Centre in 2023 Karen was the Director of Community Engagement and Family Services at Habitat for Humanity Vancouver Island North. She has served as a consultant to a variety of organizations, ran her own business for 20 years and taught business at North Island College. She has been a volunteer with many local social service and cultural organizations.
Karen is an Ashkenazi Jewish woman, a mom, daughter, sister, mentor, creative, and collaborator.
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Anne Epp
Office Manager
office@communityjusticecentre.ca
Anne keeps the finances, volunteer database, and the office organized. She prepares for meetings and assists with numerous projects. Anne’s role at the Community Justice Centre is evolving.
Anne has been active in the legal sector since working for the Public Defender’s Office while attending university. She has worked in many co-ordination and support roles for non-profit organizations, corporations, and a government agencies. She has a B.Sc. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Sociology and Criminal Justice and trained as a lawyer at the University of St. Thomas School of Law – Minneapolis, Minnesota.
When Anne is not working, she can be found on family hikes, running, or learning to paddle. She became a breast cancer survivor in July of 2021. Anne is celebrating and adjusting to what life looks like on this side of a cancer. Anne lives a full life with her husband, two young children, and a very large black cat.
Board of Directors
President
Katie MacLaurin
Manager, John Howard Society; Youth Forensic Psychiatric Services
Treasurer
Judith Marriott
Faculty, Business Administration
North Island College
Director
Kerri Lowey MacKenzie
Faculty, Social Services Diploma
North Island College
Director
Marion Edmondson
Deacon, Anglican Church
Director
Kianna Everson
Indigenous Family and Youth Navigator, Sasamans Society
Director
The Hon. Timothy Ray
Retired Justice, Ontario Superior Court
Director
Julia Doknjas
Family Law Advocate, Wachiay Friendship Centre
Appointed Director
Councillor Coral Mackay
K’ómoks First Nation
Appointed Director
Councillor Doug Hillian
City of Courtenay
Appointed Director
Councillor Steve Blacklock
Town of Comox
Appointed Director
Director Edwin Grieve
Comox Valley Regional District
Appointed Director
TBD
RCMP
Appointed Director
Councillor Neil Borecky
Village of Cumberland
History
In the fall of 1995, Comox Valley delegates learned about restorative justice ideas at the annual convention of Family Court and Youth Justice Committees of British Columbia. They returned home excited and motivated. Soon after, they met with other community members aware of developments in this field and formed a group to explore the possibility of bringing restorative justice to the Comox Valley.
By September 1996, the group had carried out wide-ranging research and organized a meeting of justice system professionals to review the resources available in the Comox Valley for persons in conflict with the law.
By April 1997, the group had developed a proposal outlining the steps for establishing a forum for applying restorative justice principles in the Comox Valley.
Throughout the summer of 1997, the group discussed further with community service agencies and programs. That fall, they formed a sub-committee that arranged a community conference on the possibility of establishing a community justice program, and fifty-two organizations were represented at the conference.
As a result of the encouraging response to the conference, a steering committee of volunteers was established. The steering committee developed a process that would enable those hurt by others to meet face-to-face with those who had caused the hurt in a safe, neutral environment within the community.
In July 1998, the Community Justice Centre of the Comox Valley Society was registered under the Societies Act of British Columbia and recognized as a charity under the Income Tax Act of Canada. In September 1998, the Community Justice Centre moved into an office, received its first case, and began officially operating.