My Plan for Reintegrating and Rebuilding Trust With My Community

This post is an inventory of what my community can expect from me over the next four months, what my accountability pod and I are calling the reintegration period.

Community accountability is an alternative to disposability culture. It means that there is an extra, added layer of work where a community is asked to show up and work together to do the hard work of allowing transgressors who’ve shown up and done their accountability work to re-enter and re-build trust with their community. It does not mean that everyone has to like one another, nor does going through an accountability process mean that reintegration is easy.

My process of interrogating my own privilege, reducing harm, being accountable, and learning will continue long after this process draws to a close. The Survivor Support Pod has posted, “Unless any new stories come in that fall outside of the established patterns and require different actions or require modifications to a plan of healing, there will be no further content analyses done or released.” After seven months of tireless support, my accountability pod has begun slowly wrapping up their active duties and commitments to this process. As part of this process, they supported me in mapping out a several month process of reintegration.

I understand that trust can be broken in a heartbeat, but never rebuilt as quickly. Because I understand this, my reintegration has to be a process, not a one time event. This four phase plan is being shared here in hopes of helping my community envision how I plan navigating the patient process of reintegrating back into day to day community life in a way that reduces potential harm while also rebuilding trust.

I will continue to learn and integrate ways to reduce harm, foster healthy relationships professionally and personally, and endeavor to do better when I don’t live up to my values.

Sept-October 2018 — Phase 1

• Medium post by my pod announcing they will be disbanding soon and what to expect from them done here.
• I will begin engaging with social media, both with more posts and with content directing people to this Medium blog and the survivor support pod’s Medium blog.
• I and my pod will continue answering questions and moderating social media comments.

October-November 2018 — Phase 2

• Final wrap up post will be published on Medium consisting of resources for those following along and those just learning of this process.
• I will begin boosting other educators’ work and restorative justice/transformative justice and accountability work resources on my social media.
• I will begin emailing newsletter subscriber lists again. First emails will inform subscribers of the accountability process, give a summary, and direct them to resources.

November -December 2018 — Phase 3

• Working from my content audit, I will release updated resources and handouts.
• I will restore my ReidAboutSex.com homepage and website will be accessible again.
• I will redirect my passive income URLs away from the ReidAboutSex.com homepage and back to the programs that have been upgraded to contain information from the content audit.
• I will resume considering invitations to speak and teach sex and relationship topics. I will accept gigs if I feel they are appropriate.

December 2018-January 2019 — Phase 4

• The formal accountability and reintegration process is complete.
• I will resume creating and promoting sex and relationship content, teaching and coaching.
• I will consider invitations to speak about my accountability experience. I will only accept these invites with the caveat that appearances to speak specifically about my accountability process are shared with someone who is actively involved in restorative/transformative justice and accountability work. This may or may not include people actively involved in my accountability process. I especially am invested in being part of men speaking to men about accountability and restorative/transformative approaches.

If you have questions or concerns about the reintegration process, please feel free to contact me directly or email my pod at rmpod2018@gmail.com. That email is checked regularly by members of my pod and we thank you for your patience in advance. I will not have access to this email account and all communications will be held as confidential unless otherwise indicated by the sender.