when the person who caused harm is no longer around

19 Jan 2024

last year, i faciliated a two-day in-person BIPOC retreat and one of the topics that came up was (surprise surprise) harm. the particular type of harm this situation was emotional, psychological, and financial harm caused by one staff member to several other staffers. and the kicker was that the person who caused the harm (pwch) was no longer working at the organization. this raised the question in the room about what to do when the person who caused harm is no longer present.

now, i know i’ve read at least a bit about this in some community accountability and transformative justice resources (i’m feeling a desire to reach for the massive accountability workbook from creative interventions…). but before i go looking (which could be a multi-hour rabbit hole), a few thoughts that came to me about what to do as the left-behind group:

1. get an apology for a similarly positioned person. sometimes, someone who is similarly socially positioned (like identity-wise) or hierarchically positioned (like in the leadership hierarchy) can understand well enough what happened to offer an apology that feels meaningful. it’s not the same as the actual person doing it, for sure, but it can feel good and redeeming to know that at least one other person in the organization/context, understands what happened and can see why it was wrong and that an apology is owed.

2. pursue an apology from the institution. this is akin to when nations apologize for harm caused by previous leaders or iterations of the national government. (example: Canadian government issues national apology to Cree Nation, south africa’s truth and reconciliation commission)

3. chase the person down. it just may be worth it to pursue the departed staffer and see if they are willing to engage in a process. sometimes, people who do fucked up shit in organizations get removed/leave because it’s better for the org in the short-term for them to be gone but the individual is actually willing and desiring to engage in repair. whether or not this is the case, it could be a good form of closure to make the attempt and at least get clear about if they are willing to engage in an accountability process or not. sometimes knowing is better than having the unknown possibility hang over your head.

4. practice healing and let go of the harm/pain/hurt as much as you can. i have learned this from people who have been doing healing work from their parents who have died. sometimes, you just won’t ever get the chance to do the direct repair. many circumstances can cause this, but a super clear one is that the pwch has died.

and what i’ve learned is that a huge amount of healing is still possible! this is because healing mostly doesn’t depend on the conditions or response from the pwch. of course, it helps if that person is involved and it super helps if that person takes responsibility and wants to engage in the relational repair directly. there’s no doubt about that.

but you can do a huge amount of internal work to acknowledge your pain, engage the suffering as a path to liberation (buddhist wisdom), and practice forgiveness which is really about setting yourself free), not about letting someone else off the hook).

there’s for sure more to say and but i’m gonna leave this here for now and go do a little digging now to try and find/remember what other folks have said about this…

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