{"id":2115,"date":"2018-03-21T17:09:00","date_gmt":"2018-03-21T17:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/youthservicesinc.org\/website_b0b5e883\/?p=2115"},"modified":"2018-09-21T17:14:23","modified_gmt":"2018-09-21T17:14:23","slug":"restorative-justice-volunteer-marilyn-buhlmann-inducted-into-hall-of-fame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/youthservicesinc.org\/website_b0b5e883\/restorative-justice-volunteer-marilyn-buhlmann-inducted-into-hall-of-fame\/","title":{"rendered":"Restorative Justice Volunteer Marilyn Buhlmann inducted into Hall of Fame"},"content":{"rendered":"

A glance around Marilyn Buhlmann\u2019s Brattleboro home tells you without a doubt two things that drive her passion: creativity and commitment to her adopted community.<\/p>\n

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Marilyn Buhlmann joins other illustrious volunteers on Youth Services’ Hall of Fame wall.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

She will be leaving Brattleboro in October, splitting her time between Florida and Colorado to be closer to family. Boxes are packed with paintings, her ceramic bowls and the \u2018Wise Ones\u201d, shamanic two-foot tall ceramic figures she hand-built.<\/p>\n

Piles of file folders must be gone through before her move; they represent the many community organizations she has impacted as a volunteer leader; three years of organizing the River Gallery School auctions while a board member; serving over 10 years on the Board of the Women\u2019s Crisis Center (4 years as chair), where she coordinated the Women\u2019s Film Festival for 3 years, and volunteering as a bereavement counselor for Brattleboro Area Hospice for 13 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love the act of giving, being able to share myself and my resources with this wonderful community that I have made my home for the past 50 years,\u201d Buhlmann said.<\/p>\n

Her longest commitment, serving as a restorative justice volunteer on a Youth Services\u2019 Diversion Board, concluded last month after 22 years, culminating with her induction into Youth Services\u2019 Hall of Fame, the organization\u2019s top award for its volunteers.<\/p>\n

Buhlmann\u2019s monthly meeting as a panelist focused on repairing the harm caused by the community member. \u201cDiversion holds those who violated the law accountable in a manner that promotes responsibility to individuals, community and relationships,\u201d she explained. \u201cAlso, when appropriate, we addressed underlying needs or issues that led to the offense.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her family of origin, not unlike many Youth Services clients, Buhlmann experienced trauma and violence and extreme poverty.\u00a0 \u201cMy life experiences have given me a lot of insight in all of the volunteer work I have done,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n

She knows from her own childhood that often young people just need nurturing and guidance to help them succeed and realize their full potential. \u201cI had a couple of teachers who told me I could go far in the world, despite my limitations.\u00a0 Their belief in me stayed deep inside me like a candle flame even in my darkest times,\u201d Buhlmann testified.<\/p>\n

In her 30\u2019s Buhlmann was finally able to go to college, propelled by the tiny flame sparked years before. \u201cAs a Diversion board member I try to light the same flame in others,\u201d she explained. \u201cIt is rewarding to have a part in what is often a transformation,\u201d Buhlmann said.<\/p>\n

Like many transplants, Buhlmann first came to Vermont in 1972 to ski, discovering instantly that \u201cshe belonged here\u201d and made it her home over the next five decades. Buhlmann worked many years as a waitress, running a hotel desk and performing other administrative jobs before she was finally able to go to college in her \u201830s to study to be a dietician.<\/p>\n

Marilyn Buhlmann will leave big shoes to fill, according to Patrick Fleming, the Youth Services Diversion Case Manager who coordinates six restorative justice panels of community members each week. He described Buhlmann as \u201ca natural\u201d at this work, unusually compassionate and someone who could instinctually alleviate the defensiveness of the most challenging clients.<\/p>\n

Before the term became widely used, Buhlmann\u2019s approach was trauma-informed, according to Fleming. \u201cWe could trust her with the most complex cases and know she would understand on a cellular-level what was important and what wasn\u2019t. She also inspired our clients to look at and address the issues that led to their offense,\u201d explained Fleming.<\/p>\n

Buhlmann is being inducted into Youth Services\u2019 Hall of Fame as the agency\u2019s first-ever recipient of the Restorative Justice Advocate Award.\u00a0 Her portrait will join Liz Richards and Ben Underhill, two other champions of Youth Services who devoted decades to the young people of Windham County, in the hallway of Youth Services.<\/p>\n

The Hall of Fame is a way for Youth Services\u2019 board to recognize community members like Buhlmann who make outstanding and sustained contributions to youth development and the agency\u2019s outreach. \u201cMarilyn went out of her way to champion Youth Services and restorative justice at every opportunity,\u201d Fleming recalled.<\/p>\n

Like the \u201cWise Ones\u201d figurines that Buhlmann fashioned from a lump of clay into something with meaning, Buhlmann\u2019s decades of empathic listening and questioning on Youth Services\u2019 Diversion Board has helped close to 3000 Windham County community members transform their mistakes into life lessons that help them choose a better path going forward.<\/p>\n

To find out how to join in this important work with our community members, please call Youth Services at (802) 257-0361 or visit www.youthservicesinc.org.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A glance around Marilyn Buhlmann\u2019s Brattleboro home tells you without a doubt two things that drive her passion: creativity and commitment to her adopted community. She will be leaving Brattleboro in October, splitting her time between Florida and Colorado to be closer to family. Boxes are packed with paintings, her ceramic bowls and the \u2018Wise […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[57,90,91],"class_list":["post-2115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-balanced-and-restorative-justice","tag-hall-of-fame","tag-marilyn-buhlmann"],"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"NanciL","author_link":"https:\/\/youthservicesinc.org\/website_b0b5e883\/author\/nancil\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/youthservicesinc.org\/website_b0b5e883\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/youthservicesinc.org\/website_b0b5e883\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/youthservicesinc.org\/website_b0b5e883\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youthservicesinc.org\/website_b0b5e883\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youthservicesinc.org\/website_b0b5e883\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2115"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/youthservicesinc.org\/website_b0b5e883\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2116,"href":"https:\/\/youthservicesinc.org\/website_b0b5e883\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2115\/revisions\/2116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/youthservicesinc.org\/website_b0b5e883\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youthservicesinc.org\/website_b0b5e883\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youthservicesinc.org\/website_b0b5e883\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}