Kellsie Sayers is our senior director of Restorative Practices, overseeing the Center’s restorative practice initiatives across a broad range of our operating programs. Kellsie’s work promotes individual, family, and community healing; advances systemic change; and creates non-traditional pathways to justice by bringing the restorative process to both communities and to individuals in the court system.
Kellsie also leads our restorative justice work at Community Justice Solutions, our national venture dedicated to helping communities and jurisdictions adopt the next generation of justice policy and practice. The focus of much of the work Kellise currently leads is on expanding the use of restorative responses to cases involving violence and serious harm, a fuller realization of restorative justice’s potential for genuine healing and accountability.
Prior to joining the Center, Kellsie worked as a public defender for the Legal Aid Society Criminal Defense Practice, providing legal representation to indigent clients on misdemeanor and felony cases.
Kellsie is a graduate of Howard University with BAs in both Political Science and Afro-American Studies. She received her Juris Doctorate from the New York University School of Law, and her Master of Social Work from the New York University Silver School of Social Work.