I work with organizations, schools, teams, and families who are dealing with youth conflict, behaviour issues, online harm, or situations that feel hard to manage. My role is to help adults slow down, understand what’s really happening, and respond in ways that reduce harm rather than escalate it.
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About Jo Phillips
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Jo Phillips is a restorative leadership practitioner, speaker, and facilitator who works with schools, teams, and organizations when situations involving youth are complex, high-stakes, or hard to hold.
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For more than 10 years, Jo has worked at the intersection of youth development, business, education, justice, and community systems. Her work is grounded in a simple but often overlooked truth: behaviour is a response to experience, and how adults respond in moments of stress, conflict, or harm can either repair relationships, or cause lasting damage.
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When Organizations Call Jo
Jo is brought in when the concern isn’t just what happened, but what could happen next if it’s mishandled. This includes moments of rupture, public or online harm, grief, conflict within teams or schools, power imbalances, and situations where fear, urgency, or silence are driving decisions.
In these moments, Jo provides steady, structured, restorative leadership that helps adults slow down, listen differently, and respond with accountability and care rather than panic or control.
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​How Jo Works
Jo’s work blends restorative practice, systems thinking, and deep respect for young people with a grounded, calm presence that helps regulate rooms that feel tense or emotionally charged. She is known for her ability to hold difficult conversations without escalating them, name hard truths without shaming, and guide groups toward shared understanding and forward movement.
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Depending on context, Jo’s work may take the form of a keynote, facilitated dialogue, custom restorative process, or multi-step intervention. She does not offer one-size-fits-all programming. Each engagement begins with assessment and is designed to match the level of risk, responsibility, and complexity involved.
This work is time-bound and structured; it is not therapy, investigation, or discipline, but restorative leadership that supports repair and long-term stability.
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​Programs and Scalable Work
In addition to her custom restorative work, Jo is the creator of JoOutLoud BenchTalk, a restorative culture intervention for youth sport and team environments. This program addresses communication under pressure, accountability, online behaviour, power dynamics, and reintegration, helping teams build shared expectations before harm occurs and navigate repair when it does. The program is used by teams and organizations who want to reduce scapegoating, prevent escalation, and protect young people from being defined by their worst moment.
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Jo also licenses two preventative school programs—Starting a Social Media Conversation and Starting an AI Conversation—which support youth and educators in navigating digital life and emerging technologies through a restorative, responsibility-focused lens. These programs are delivered by trained facilitators and serve as scalable tools within schools, while Jo’s core work remains focused on leadership, culture, and complex situations where judgment and experience matter most.
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​Experience Across Systems
Throughout her career, Jo has worked closely with educators, administrators, coaches, justice partners, community organizations, and families. She understands the pressure adults face when responsible for young people in public, institutional, or high-visibility environments, and the real fear of making things worse.
Her work offers an alternative to reactive decision-making by helping systems pause, clarify what is truly at stake, and respond in ways that protect both youth and the adults who serve them.
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​Speaking and Presence
Jo’s speaking style is clear, grounded, and real. She uses humour sparingly and intentionally, not to entertain, but to release tension and open space for honest reflection. Audiences often describe her presence as calming, direct, and deeply human.
Rather than offering quick fixes or slogans, Jo invites adults to slow down, question assumptions, and take responsibility for the impact of their choices.
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​Guiding Beliefs
At the heart of Jo’s work is a belief that meaningful change does not come from doing to young people, but from working with them, and that adults must go first.
She challenges systems that prioritize compliance over connection, speed over care, and appearances over repair, while remaining deeply practical about what is possible within real-world constraints.
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Background and Credentials
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Jo holds a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the University of Calgary and is a Certified Youth Resilience Coach through the Youth Coaching Institute. She is a trained Restorative Justice Practitioner, with experience in conferencing and school-based restorative practices.
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She currently serves as Executive Director of Regional Red Deer Restorative Justice, where she works closely with schools, justice partners, and community organizations to support accountability, repair, and systemic change.
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Jo is also the co-founder and former leader of Jo(e) Social Media, a digital media agency she ran for 11 years, and the founder of Journey Youth Creative (2020–2023), a mentored space where young people explored social media, gaming, and digital identity in safe, supported ways.
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​Lived Experience
In addition to her professional work, Jo is the parent of three grown children, an experience that grounds her work in lived reality and deep respect for the complexity of raising kids in a rapidly changing world.
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The Question That Guides The Work
​Her guiding question in every engagement is simple:
How do we respond in a way that reduces harm now and prevents more harm later?
