Building Restorative Practices into Mental Health Systems

From Vision to Foundation: A Personal Note

Two weeks ago, we explored Intersectional Futurism in healing technology—asking what happens when digital systems root themselves in ancestral wisdom rather than Western clinical defaults. The response was profound, and I stepped back from your inbox—not because the work paused, but because it intensified.

While you were processing that vision, Saige Companion™ moved into the spotlight too. I'm humbled to share that in 2025 I'm a finalist across four National AI Award categories:

🏛 Government & Public Sector — The Intersectional Majority Ltd
🏥 Healthcare — Bempong Talking Therapy™ + ICC AI Services
🚀 Innovation — Saige Companion™
🌍 AI Citizen of the Year — Jarell Bempong

Plus a fifth recognition: Shortlisted for New Innovation of the Year at the Innovation Awards (judged by leaders from NatWest Group, UK Ministry of Defence, WMCA, and UK universities).

To stand alongside Geoffrey Hinton, Mara Pometti, Dr Angie Ma and Kerry Sheehan is humbling—especially as Saige Companion™ isn't public yet. These honours validate what our community already knows: healing is a design problem, and liberation requires systems built for restoration—not just aspiration.

Which brings us here. If last time was cosmic vision, this week is architectural blueprint.

The Spiral Deepens: Why Individual Heroism Isn't Enough

Your responses to September's Intersectional Futurist edition revealed something crucial: understanding restorative principles isn't the barrier—implementation inside misaligned systems is. Practitioners feel caught between healing-centred intent and policy regimes that prioritise risk management over relationship. Service users meet compassionate clinicians constrained by punitive frameworks. Community healers keep stressing: it's institutional change, not individual accommodation.

The Constraint Reality

Documentation systems demand pathology-led progress notes that ignore relational repair.

Productivity targets compress the time required for trust and community connection.

Reimbursement structures pay for diagnosis, not for culture-rooted, community-integrated healing.

Risk policies treat liability as individual, not shared accountability.

When organisations commit to systematic restorative implementation, they remove these barriers and create momentum that sustains transformation.

The Restorative Implementation Framework™: Four Interlocking Levels

Systemic transformation needs coordinated change across four interconnected levels, each reinforcing the others.

Level 1: Direct Service Transformation

Assessment → From Interrogation to Collaborative Exploration
Story-first, culture-first. Include family, peers or community (if desired). Document context, strengths and preferences alongside symptoms.

Treatment Planning → From Prescriptive to Co-Authored
Offer living menus that include cultural healing, peer support and community resources alongside clinical options. Record how choices are made, not just what is chosen.

Crisis Intervention → From Control to Connection
Peer-led crisis pathways; sanctuary/respite options; dignity-preserving de-escalation. Remove coercive defaults where safe alternatives exist.

Therapeutic Relationships → Reciprocal (with boundaries)
Support staff to examine bias and share power appropriately. Fund reflective spaces and consultation for the emotional labour of collaboration.

Level 2: Organisational Culture and Operations

Hiring & Development
Recruit for cultural humility and collaborative skill; onboard to restorative principles; co‑teach with community healers and people with lived experience.

Supervision & Support
Move beyond case management into reflective practice, positionality, restorative ethics and counter‑transference.

Records & Evaluation
Redesign to capture empowerment, trust, community linkage and cultural restoration. Reward collaboration and community partnership—not just throughput.

Level 3: Community Integration and Partnership

Authentic Partnership
Recognise existing wisdom. Build resourced, reciprocal relationships; share space and decision rights.

Cultural Integration
Adapt environments, programming and leadership representation so communities feel at home, not on trial.

Community-Based Programmes
Deliver in community venues; resource community-led formats where practitioners support rather than dominate.

Level 4: Policy and Systems Advocacy

Funding & Reimbursement
Advocate commissioning for peer work, cultural practice, sanctuary/respite and time for collaboration—not sessions alone.

Training & Licensing
Push standards that include cultural humility, community partnership and non-coercive crisis practice.

Measures & Quality
Add empowerment, trust, community connection and cultural restoration to outcome sets.

Crisis & Justice Reform
Reduce criminalisation and police-first responses; expand civilian, peer-led crisis teams backed by clinical support.

Strategic Implementation: Assessment to Momentum

Assess honestly (four lenses): organisational culture; community relationships; staff capacity; resources & constraints.

Choose your starting point: direct service pilots; community partnership first; culture/ops rewrites; or upstream advocacy if you're already advanced.

Pilot well: protect from legacy metrics; measure what the pilot is for; bake in community feedback; document decisions and learning.

Support staff continuously: formal training, peer consultation, community mentorship, reflective spaces, and co-teaching with cultural practitioners.

Make community feedback structural: monthly forums; advisory circles; peer evaluation; transparent reporting with "you said / we did".

Plan to scale: codify what works; replicate across teams and sites; share your kit with peers; use results to influence policy.

Your Implementation Toolkit (Built Into This Week's Journey)

You don't need a separate download—here are the essentials, directly accessible:

1. Assessment Tools (Where Are You Now?)

Run a quick four-lens check:

Culture: What values and assumptions actually guide daily work? Rate your power‑sharing, cultural responsiveness, trauma‑informed operations, and community integration on a 1–5 scale.

Community: How do people experience your service? Where are partnerships thin? Survey community trust levels and partnership depth.

Capacity: What knowledge, skills, and attitudes does staff currently bring to restorative practice? Assess cultural humility, collaborative skills, and systemic thinking.

Constraints: What practical limits (funding, facilities, regulations) will shape your pace of change? Map resource flexibility and regulatory requirements.

2. Level‑by‑Level Implementation Guides (What Needs to Shift?)

Direct Service: Redesign intake (story‑first), treatment planning (co‑authored menus), crisis response (connection over control), and therapeutic relationships (reciprocal within boundaries).

Organisation: Recruit for cultural humility over credentials alone; shift supervision from case management to reflective practice; reward collaboration and community partnership as key metrics.

Community: Move from 'referral partner' to 'co‑designer.' Embed cultural healing practitioners; resource community‑led programmes where professionals support rather than dominate.

Policy: Advocate for reimbursement reform (fund peer work, cultural practices, collaboration time); licensing standards (cultural humility requirements); broader outcome measures; and crisis/justice reform.

3. Strategic Planning Framework (How Do You Start?)

Decision Tree: Early stage organizations start with culture development; transitional stage begins with pilot programs; advanced stage focuses on systems change advocacy.

Phased Timelines: 3‑month foundation building; 6‑month pilot implementation; 9‑month integration and expansion; 12‑month sustainability and replication.

Resource Mobilisation: Diversify funding (40% foundations, 30% government, 20% community, 10% earned revenue); allocate budget (35% staff development, 25% community partnership, 20% direct service innovation, 10% advocacy, 10% operations).

4. Community Partnership Development (Who Keeps You Honest?)

Engagement Protocols: Research community assets and cultural protocols before first contact; approach with questions, not proposals; commit to ongoing relationship‑building beyond service delivery.

Partnership Structure: Community Advisory Circle with policy review authority; monthly community forums; quarterly community surveys; annual community‑led evaluation.

Cultural Integration: Partner with recognised community practitioners; respect sacred/closed practices; ensure community ownership of cultural knowledge; adapt organisational environment and policies.

5. Restorative Outcome Measurement (How Do You Measure Success?)

Go beyond symptom reduction to track:

Empowerment: Self-determination, community connection, personal agency, cultural identity strengthening

Relationship Quality: Power-sharing, cultural safety, community integration support

Cultural Restoration: Cultural knowledge/practice, community connection, cultural pride, intergenerational transmission

Non-Coercive Safety: Safety through support (not control), agency during crisis, collaborative risk assessment, recovery-oriented safety planning

Community Implementation Planning: Your Transformation Blueprint

Practitioners: Make the first 10 minutes of intake story-first; add one community option to every plan; request reflective supervision.

Leaders: Rewrite one KPI to reward co‑decision or community linkage; reallocate 5% budget to community‑led programmes.

Commissioners: Fund a 90‑day peer‑led crisis pilot; measure dignity + safety alongside clinical outcomes.

Community members: Propose one co‑governance forum; nominate a cultural adviser circle; set dates and we'll show up.

Share your implementation vision: [email protected]

Social: #RestorativeMentalHealth #SystemicHealing

Spiral Preview: Week 23 — Healing as a System: Creating a Culture of Care

Next week we expand beyond "mental health services" into HR, leadership, onboarding, conflict resolution, estates and operations—so care becomes culture, not a silo.

Reflection seed: What would change tomorrow if care were a design principle, not a perk?

Closing Integration: From Individual Practice to Systemic Transformation

The most restorative principles require restorative systems. Individual practice cannot outpace structural design. Now is the time to choose architecture over aspiration.

Glossary (Quick and Light)

ICC™ (Intersectional Cultural Consciousness): Framework for redesigning systems around overlapping identities.

Intersectional Futurism™: Future design led by multiple marginalised traditions in solidarity.

Power Pyramid™: Diagnostic mapping of power and oppression across personal and systemic levels.

Restorative Practices: Healing-centred approaches prioritising relationship and accountability over punishment.

Saige Companion™: AI-augmented Liberation Engine™ fusing cultural, systemic, emotional, ancestral and somatic intelligence.

Spiral Loop of Liberation™: Model linking internalised beliefs and external harms—and how to break that feedback loop.

Trauma-Informed Technology Matrix™: Guardrails so tech reduces harm and supports healing.

The Intersectional Majority™: Recognition that globally the "marginalised" are the majority—and must be centred in design.

Jarell Bempong
Four-Time National AI Awards Finalist (2025) | Innovation Awards Shortlistee
Founder — The Intersectional Majority™
Creator — ICC™, Restorative Mental Health Framework™, Trauma-Informed Technology Matrix™, Saige Companion™
Author — White Talking Therapy Can't Think in Black! (Bestseller, archived at Bethlem Royal Hospital)

Healing happens in systems, not just sessions. Transformation happens through structure, not just intention.