 And we are here today to acknowledge and celebrate the publication of the final report and also acknowledge and celebrate all the different efforts that went into this restorative inquiry starting first with the primary effort which was from the participants themselves. And so I want to introduce Debbie Jeffery who is here to read a group statement related to the work of the inquiry and the publication of the report. Good afternoon everyone and thank you all for coming. I'm happy to represent the members of the Voices of St. Joseph's Orphanage. Our appointed spokesman is usually Brenda Hannon who really rocks it so bear with me. She's been doing an amazing job for our group and I hope she's enjoying her travels. Some of our members were unable to attend but have written their own statements. As a group we would like to thank all the people who have played such an important role as a part of the restorative justice inquiry. First and foremost we would like to thank Mark Wimberg who facilitated the inquiry so skillfully. With his guidance, compassion, patience and wisdom he was able to lead us through a complex process towards tangible accomplishments. Thank you Mark for your sensitive leadership. We will be forever grateful. We would also like to acknowledge Rachel, Amy, Judy and Carol for their unique contributions. Also we would like to thank Burlington Parks and Rec, the state of Vermont and many others who have so generously helped us towards our goals. Far too many to mention. Thank you so very much. Finally we'd like to offer a remembrance to a long standing member of our group, Mr. Walter Colty. One of his most important goals was to have his sister's name inscribed on a plaque which was placed on a maple sapling in her memory. The sapling bearing her name was one of many that will be planted in the memorial healing space on the grounds of the former orphanage. May he rest in peace. Again our deepest thanks to everyone and we will carry you all with us always. Thank you. Thank you Debbie. I'd like to offer some thoughts of my own. I want to begin by thanking the Vermont Center for Crime Victims Services director Jennifer Pullman, grant manager Jean Nelson and training director Amber King for all of their support and work in organizing this event. The center has been a true champion of the restorative inquiry from the very beginning and it would not have taken place without your support fundamentally. I also want to say how grateful I am to have had the opportunity to facilitate the inquiry and to partner with my co-collaborators in this effort Rachel Jolly and Amy Farr. And also to have had the great good fortune to get to know and deeply admire the members of the voices of St. Justice Orphanage Group. I realize we're here to acknowledge and at least for me celebrate the release of the final report. Suffice it to say it took a tad longer to complete than expected. With its publication however I hope that this report will serve as a resource and perhaps inspiration for other communities that are ready to face the legacies of institutional trauma. As we all know too well the need for such reckonings continue to surface and demand our attention both here in Vermont and beyond. I also want to offer a few reflections on what I've learned from and through this process. First it's really important to acknowledge the press and your role. This inquiry would not have been conceived let alone implemented without good investigative journalism. Sam Hemingway started reporting on St. Justice Orphanage in the 1990s giving an early platform to the former children of the institution. For many reasons however as a state we were not ready to reckon with and own our shame. That would take another 30 years and the Buzzfeed article of Christine Keneally. Christine's article along with some key institutional support ignited the inquiry process. In Restorative Justice true reckoning begins with listening. Only then can we meet our obligations and take the meaningful steps to make amends. That was the fundamental structure of this two and a half year process. Listen, listen, listen to the voices of St. Joseph Orphanage. And the group's remarkable and growing list of achievements is a testament to the power of their voices and their stories. With a few notable exceptions many private and public institutions including the Vermont legislature stepped up to the moment. They met multiple times with the group listened to their stories and requests and responded with care, dedication and responsive commitment including the passage of S99. This is Restorative Justice. The inquiry was also a very creative process guided by the priorities and decision making of the participants themselves. The important work and evolving work of the Writers Group and Carol Adonalfi The powerful voices of St. Joseph Orphanage traveling exhibition which was developed in partnership with the Vermont Folklife Center and the work to fund and install the Memorial and Healing Garden on the former Orphanage grounds which is a collaboration between the group and Burlington Parks and Recreation. This also is Restorative Justice. As I previously mentioned there were a few notable exceptions to this responsive engagement. The Vermont Catholic Diocese and Vermont Catholic Charities steadfastly refused to participate in this process which to my mind was a profound missed opportunity. But enough of that. It's important to recognize that we live in a state that has a long term commitment to support both victim services and restorative justice and we are very fortunate to have the Center for Crime Victim Services which sees these two approaches as both aligned and mutually supportive. This is unique. And then I want to finish by saying that the inquiry wasn't always an easy process and if Walter Colty were here with us today I'm sure he would have something to say about that. But even the hardest moments we found our way through guided by our commitments to each other, a lot of care and empathy and healthy doses of laughter. I have nothing but gratitude for the participants of this process and what we learned together. Thank you. I'd like to invite up Representative Serita Austin who is a member of the advisory group of The Voices. Thank you. I want to express my deep gratitude to the members of The Voices of St. Joseph's members, Mark Wrenberg, Rachel Dolly, Amy Farr and the other members of the advisory council that invited me to join the St. Joseph restorative inquiry group. It has been an honor and privilege to participate in this journey to be a witness to this process is not only humbling but also inspirational beyond what I could have ever imagined. This is what The Voices of St. Joseph's members asked of the legislature. We ask that the Vermont State legislature listen to us and acknowledge the harm that we have experienced. We also call on lawmakers to work with us to enact laws that better protect vulnerable people of all ages who face abuse of all kinds. Since this request was made, the Vermont legislature has passed legislation to honor the request of The Voices members. S99 lifted the statute of limitations on physical abuse. H8 lifted the statute of limitations on sexual abuse. H644 passed unanimously on the floor of the house yesterday. We'll provide access to past records of individuals placed by a child placing agency in foster homes, a residential care facility. There's a new position, the office of the child advocate and the ACES bill that was passed several years ago. ACES's adverse childhood experience that required professional development for those that work with potential victims of ACES, educators, medical professionals, law enforcement and judiciary. We still have a lot of work to do on your behalf, but I want to assure you the voices that we hear you and are committed to ensuring the safety and protection of all vulnerable remonters, young and old. Thank you, Representative Austin. I want to invite Jennifer Pullman from the Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services. Good afternoon. I certainly want to thank the individuals behind me and also the many victims and survivors who are not here today for including us in this process and for inviting us to take part in this really important event today. It is truly an honor to be here and it has always humbled me to listen to the stories, to be even privy to what brave, courageous individuals were willing to share because they would not be silenced. The Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services strives to support victim-centered and trauma-informed services for victims and survivors regardless of prosecution. We hold it as a value that is crucial for justice to be victim-defined and not necessarily tied to the criminal justice process, where victims are treated frankly more like witnesses, even if a case is pursued. As you know, for the victims and survivors of St. Joseph's orphanage, that was not the case. There was no criminal justice process, no accountability. Their voices were not heard and their experiences were ignored for years and even decades. As we learned about the outreach that was coming from these survivors who were not content to be silent but wanted to create change, wanted to be heard, that they wanted to be a part of defining what they needed now, again, even decades later. And their hope that their stories might actually finally be told and perhaps even create change. As we heard about this momentum and understood that there was going to be support from a really important stakeholder who could help elevate those voices, the Center was absolutely committed immediately to doing whatever we could to support, again, the elevation of voices that had been silenced for too long. And as you've heard, this initiative has shown a light on the importance of truly listening to victims and the possibilities that can exist if they are at the Center. It's also shown a light on the importance and need for an entirely separate process that, again, is victim-defined. You just heard many of the accomplishments that have been achieved thanks to the voices that were brave enough to come forward to create legislative change and policy change in addition to raising awareness and education. This project has been more successful than we could have ever imagined and obviously that has so much to do with the bravery of the voices and with the many folks who took this project on and held it in their hearts. Our hope is that this process will serve as a model and example to other entities both in Vermont and across the country, that it is never too late to listen and that there is always value no matter how many years have gone by to telling someone who has been harmed, I believe you, I'm here for you, and what do you need? I particularly want to thank the many courageous voices again who participated in this process who were not afraid to come forward, were not afraid to put their stories out there, who did raise that awareness and they created hope for other survivors who also have been silenced for years and decades. Their message, don't ever give up and do not accept being kept silent. And through this, they've changed lives and their changing systems and I'm really extremely grateful to have been a witness to their work that has taken place. Thank you. Thank you Jennifer. Next from Rachel Jolly, Director of the Burlington Community Justice Center. Thank you so much. I will keep my remarks brief because of all that's been said already that really does capture so much of how I feel about this project. But I feel enormously blessed and honored to have been a part the city of Burlington's Community and Economic Development Office of which I'm a part with the Community Justice Center. Didn't hesitate to want to host this project, this initiative because of what it represented past, present and future about owning that shame, as Mark said, and about listening, learning and hopefully preventing future harm. I think part of the vision of the restorative inquiry was to seek repair, resolution, healing, learning and hope in any and all of its forms. And being while being led and guided by those who are most harm and harmed and impacted. For me, the beauty came from its organic evolution, the iterative process that was created by each of the players that really no one could have known while gathering in a room over three years ago to talk about the need for restorative inquiry, but that only became alive and realized through the gathering of the voices, the former residents, as well as the community partners. Through the courage, bravery and sometimes ongoing sacrifices of the project's members, so much positive change and transformation has already emerged and continues to emerge in our laws, our land, our parks and our cultural memories. Though we experienced tremendous disappointment by the lack of accountability and the lack of engagement of primary stakeholders that have been mentioned, I was continually amazed by the power of survivor's stories to move ordinary citizens and civil servants like myself to look for ways to affect change today and into the future. So much gratitude to the countless partners that have been mentioned, the voices of St. Joseph's orphanage members, first and foremost, to Amy, to Mark, to the Center for Crime Victim Services, to the many partners and collaborators that continue actually to come up as we are seeking funds for that memorial in the former orphanage grounds. I have been transformed by this experience myself and this project created new memories, new stories that I think continue to change people as they are witness to them through education but also through being part of the change and prevention of future harm. So I'm so very honored and humbled to be a part of it and will forever remember it. Thank you. Thank you, Rachel and now Amy Farr, Victim Advocate and Victim Advocate for this process. Thank you, Mark and Rachel and Jen and everyone who has already spoken. I've said many times that I was so, I feel so lucky to be in the right place at the right time to be a part of this. And I guess what I would say is I just want everyone to read this like please, please read it. I am confident that you will learn something and I am hopeful that you will want to learn more. When Christine Kanely's article spotlighted decades of injustice and harm suffered by children who lived at the St. Joseph's Orphanage when this article came out at the time I was at the Attorney General's office we knew we were committed to an opening an investigation and we also knew that a traditional criminal justice response would not be adequate and there were no existing guidelines to help us know how to proceed. And with the bravery of the center and Mark and Rachel and a lot of community members we kind of just moved forward and of course that goes without speaking to also recognize the bravery of the voices who were also the people who needed to drive this and I feel like they did drive it. We had so many people who stepped forward with their time, their expertise with financial resources and we forged ahead with the guidance of the voices of St. Joseph's. So I think this report not only documents kind of our process. I also hope that maybe it will live on and serve as a roadmap for anyone who might need it in the future. And so I would just like to conclude by giving my my endless gratitude to the voices of St. Joseph's to all the people and their families who worked with us to allow us to join them in this effort and in this mission to ensure that people are always going to be around to protect the needs of children. Thank you. And we wanted to finish this conference with some personal statements. Debbie Gevry, I know you have a personal statement and I don't know if Caitlin does as well. Okay, so Debbie and then Caitlin and we'll wrap it up. This is my personal statement, but I hope that I speak for some of the other survivors as well. Maybe my brother. Sadness and fear had rained all the days of my life, and I knew not why. In my conscious mind I was well aware of where I spent 10 years of my own life, but in the name of preservation I unknowingly blocked the horror out. Many days were spent in a state of panic with no reason why. When asked if I would like to take part in the restorative inquiry, I discovered where the fear originated. Joining the process was both a blessing and a curse, but in hindsight I am extremely glad I did. Through the tough times and the good, all the participants, including Mark, Rachel, Amy and Carol, our Reuters group facilitator, they stood by me and it wasn't long until they became family to me. These were people who either shared the same experiences or showed great compassion for what the former children had gone through. I began to cry less and smile more. So many kind souls stepped forward to help. To help us in our healing journey into all I would like to take in the first time in my life, I feel I have never heard. In acknowledged, it's a feeling I can only explain as freedom from the bondage of fear and freedom from a pain so deep it can only be imagined. Thank you again for all the help and for the foresight in establishing the restorative justice process. Thank you, Debbie. And Caitlin Hoffman, another member of the group. Well, yesterday during the brightest group we finished what we wanted to say to everybody, the group statement, and the song started going through my head that I couldn't get rid of and I still have to write what I wanted to say for this afternoon, but I couldn't do it. This song is just right there. So I ended up writing the parody of it and then I shared it with another voice member. And both she and another long-term friend wanted me to say it just as it was. They said that it does represent my feelings about the restorative justice program that went through. So it's a parody from To Sir With Love. Those perfect days of predator to priest and wicked nuns are gone, but the memories live on and on. How can I thank someone who's listened to me much more than I should have done? Who tolerated my every breath and rage from politics to death? Who understood my manicures while I barely took a breath? You never judged me just gave hugs, bleeds me and in me, sometimes given a gentle nudge. You helped me work than you should have done when what I really wanted was to run, run, run. You cared enough to let me know while slowly, subtly and sometimes painfully I'd grow, grow, I'd grow. I may not show it, but right from the start, you all go special places deep in my heart. To Mark, Rachel, Amy, the Serious Justice team and Carol and Katie who came later. Good luck. So that concludes the conference for today. Thank you all for coming and the link for the report is available. The report itself is available on the St. Joseph's Orphanage Restorative Inquiry website. Just do a search on that. St. Joseph's Orphanage Restorative Inquiry. It'll take you to the website and then there's a tab for the report itself. Thank you.