Mend Collaborative

Mend Collaborative was formed in 2022 by Rebecca Weiker and Miguel Quezada, who both have firsthand experience with the justice system. Weiker, a survivor of harm and advocate in the survivor community, invited Quezada, a formerly incarcerated facilitator, to oversee a victim-offender dialogue. Together, they discovered how this  partnership from different life experiences brought a wealth of wisdom, expertise, integrity, and credibility to the work of healing and restoration.  

Mend Collaborative offers several services to support the recovery and transformation process. The Day of Healing is a trauma-informed program that offers healing activities for survivors in the community and incarcerated survivors to share and process experiences of grief, loss, harm, and resilience. Victim Offender Dialogues (VODS) are in-person meetings and/or letter exchanges between persons who harmed and who were harmed. Surrogate Restorative Dialogues take place between survivors of harm and a surrogate for the person causing harm, usually an incarcerated person who was responsible for a similar form of harm. Mend Collaborative also offers training on its restorative justice programs and processes to other nonprofit organizations as well as government victim assistance and criminal justice agencies. Through all of its work, Mend Collaborative seeks to demonstrate the transformative power of healing and partnership between survivors and offenders.