Restorative justice advocate Katy Hutchison speaks to Nelson-area students about forgiveness
Katy Hutchison forgave her husband's killer and became a passionate spokeswoman for restorative justice
Students at Mt. Sentinel Secondary School near Nelson, B.C., heard from a restorative justice advocate on Tuesday, six months after one of their fellow students shut down the high school and postponed graduation ceremonies by allegedly uttering threats.
Katy Hutchison is speaking to students and community groups in the Nelson area during Restorative Justice Week, the third week in November.
Hutchison became an advocate for forgiveness and restorative justice after her husband, lawyer Bob McIntosh, was killed in Squamish by a teen in 1997.
Hutchison met with her husband's killer and forgave him.
She wrote a book about her experience titled Walking After Midnight: One Woman's Journey Through Murder, Justice, and Forgiveness.
On Tuesday Hutchison spoke to Mt. Sentinel Secondary students about her story and the power of forgiveness.
"I shared with the kids the story of my decision to reach out and sort of lean into the young man that was responsible for the crime," she said.
"That relationship and that trajectory really altered, I think, what might have been the course of my life otherwise had I embraced a more hate-filled or vengeful response to the harm."
Students at Mt. Sentinel dealt with a crisis situation in June when a fellow student allegedly uttered threats that shut down the school and postponed graduation.
Hutchinon was impressed by the demeanour and the candour of the students she spoke with on Tuesday.
Building a strong sense of community and empathy
The school community has already handled the incident in a restorative way, said Hutchison.
"I believe that there was a real sense from the young people who were affected that they cared deeply for their classmate and they wanted to know that everybody was OK," she said.
"They wanted to have dialogue and they wanted to see a healthy and reparative outcome."
Giving students an opportunity to share what is going on with them both inside and outside the classroom is essential for building a strong sense of community and empathy in a school, said Hutchison.
"The more I do this work, the more I realize that the real promise exists in our education system, where we have an opportunity to educate a generation of young people to expect a restorative opportunity as the default way that we repair harm," she said.