What is ‘Right Relations’?
Right Relations refers to our Westside UU process for how we live our covenant as a community, and for how we want to be together relationally. It’s the umbrella term for the work we do to create a radically welcoming community where we learn and grow together, practice empathy and compassion, dismantle oppression and inequities, welcome healthy conflict, and practice reconnection and repair.
Right Relations is a common term in many Unitarian Universalist spaces. At Westside, we have been integrating Nonviolent Communications (NVC), Restorative Justice, and Circle practices into our Right Relations skill set since 2023.
In January 2025, our congregation voted to adopt a new Community Covenant, created collaboratively with whole community inputs. Our focus in this 2025-2026 church year is to learn how to live our covenant, and to reconnect and repair our relationships when there are ruptures between us. In June of 2025, we adopted a set of Pathways to Reconnection and Repair that integrate what we have learned about NVC, Restorative Justice, and Circle work, to support us in reconnection and repair efforts. All of this is a living work in progress, with community commitments and structures to support us along the way.
One of those structures is our Westside Core Team, guiding and collaborating with the congregation to bring Right Relations practices into our everyday congregational life.
What is the Core Team?
The Core Team evolved from a group of congregants who were eager to go deeply into our learning about NVC, Restorative Justice and Circle practices when we began working with consultant Pam Orbach (A Center for Restorative Solutions) for our Right Relations processes in 2023. This group of six to eight volunteers commit to facilitating the learning, practice and implementation of these Right Relations skills throughout our beloved community. The team works closely with Rev. Carter, our Board of Trustees, and with the input and support of our broader congregational community.
Last year, the Core Team facilitated the co-creation of our updated WSUU community covenant and a new approach to addressing conflict in healthy ways, called our Pathways to Reconnection and Repair. In this 2025-2026 church year, the Core Team is committed to the whole community collaboration necessary to bring these documents into the everyday culture and practices of our congregational life. Our community will experience this together in a variety of ways, including:
- Finding easy access to information about our Covenant and Pathways on our website, in our weekly newsletter, from our pulpit, and around our building.
- Integrating our Covenant content into our worship and other small group ministry rituals, such as opening words and elements of meetings and Sunday services
- Integrating our Covenant content into our Religious Exploration and Music program rituals.
- Learning and practicing the NVC, Restorative Justice, and Circle skills that will bring our Covenant and Pathways to life through Spark Sunday activities, third Tuesday practice sessions, and other training and education opportunities.
- Engaging with the Core Team members in all kinds of creative ways! You can bring us into your meetings and activities, invite us to offer the benefits of ‘process observing’, ask for support with relational challenges, ask for help in working through the Pathways to Reconnection and Repair.
We are all in this together! In a world where we are not seeing many leaders living values centered around equity and justice, it seems as important as ever to grow our toolkits, model the values we hold dearly, and to walk our talk.
Our 2025-2026 WSUU Core Team can be reached through this email address, or by connecting with any team member –
Amy Hance-Brancati, Jade Wilde, Mike Blome, Riley Anderson, Shannon Day, Storey Squires, Tracy Burrows
Learn more about the evolution of this work and the Core Team here.
How do I learn more about NVC, Restorative Justice, Circle practices, healthy conflict, and other elements of our Right Relations processes?
Our congregation is committed to continued learning, education, and application of these practices. Our minister and religious professional staff, our Board of Trustees, our Core Team, and other lay leaders are working to explicitly build learning and practice opportunities into our congregational life. These opportunities are shared from the pulpit, through our weekly newsletter, and include both formal training and informal practice opportunities. All are invited and encouraged to engage!
- Spark Sundays – 1st Sundays in the Social Hall, connection, conversation, learning.
- Practice sessions the third Tuesday of each month -learn about NVC & restorative justice practices
- Offerings through A Center for Restorative Solutions – check out all the great opportunities for learning NVC & more.
- Opportunities to engage the Core Team with any small group ministry in our congregation – want your group to learn more about right relations & related practices? – contact the Core Team
If I am dealing with a conflict in our Westside community, how do I ask for help?
- Contact a Core Team Member: Any community member who has experienced disconnection or negative impact because of something that has happened in the congregation is encouraged to contact a Core Team (coreteam@wsuu.org) member to begin exploring a pathway forward. This initial conversation will include a discussion of which of the pathways is the most appropriate place to start. NOTE: If the issue involves a WSUU staff member, the Minister should be the initial contact person.
- Confidentiality Matters: Everyone engaging in the Pathways to Reconnection and Repair process has the right to confidentiality. Please inform those you contact of your boundaries regarding confidentiality, such as your name and details about the situation. Such confidences will be protected.
- Support and Respect: Every person in the Pathways process will be treated with respect and kindness. The Core Team will explore the level of support needed for participation with all participants. For marginalized stakeholders (for example: disabled, BIPOCs, 2SLGBTQIA folks, youth, economically disadvantaged, and/or vulnerable) a Core Team member will specifically discuss options such as a facilitator, or an additional ally with cultural identities that align with the participant’s, or culturally competent chaplaincy support.
- Community Integrity: The congregation is made up of people connected in relationships and roles. Those carrying out the service of right relations acknowledge positional and relational biases, power differences, and the added responsibility right relations work brings. They commit to working to protect the wellbeing of each individual as well as the community.
coreteam@wsuu.org Amy Hance-Brancati, Jade Wilde, Mike Blome, Riley Anderson, Shannon Day, Storey Squires, Tracy Burrows