RESTORATIVE PRACTICES

Restorative Practices are processes that proactively build healthy relationships and a sense of community to prevent and address conflict and wrongdoing.

Restorative practices are approaches that seek to proactively build community to prevent problems from arising and use dialogue, not just punishment, when possible do occur. Restorative practices are helpful for creating a respectful classroom, developing rapport with students, managing conflicts, establishing routines and expectations for positive student behaviors, and more.
Restorative Practices improve school climate, decrease disciplinary disparities, engage students and families, support Social and Emotional Learning, promote accountability, and increase clear communication.

Restorative Justice- Fosters righting a wrong and repairing harm.

Community Conference- Involves participation of all stakeholders to contribute to the conflict resolution process.

Community Service- restores harm via meaningful service

Peer Juries- Jurors collectively discuss why rule broken, who affected, and how to repair

Circle Process- builds relationships and community

Preventive and Post Conflict Resolution- provides problem solving and self control, how to manage potential conflicts, and resolves the root causes

Peer Mediation- trains students to help other students resolve conflicts

Informal Restorative Practices- small ways to influence a positive environment

Website: http://www.btsd.us/
Location: 5 Blue Lake Rd. Levittown, PA 19057
Phone: 215-943-3200

The biggest difference is in making amends and repairing harm.

Traditional discipline focuses on violation of rules, while restorative practices consider how the relationships have been damaged. Traditional discipline is directed primarily toward the offender, while restorative practices account or the needs of the victim, too. f

The climate of a school is based on three practices used to prevent and manage conflict:

Peacekeeping- use security measures and seek to control and limit student freedoms to maintain order. (Door Locks & physical barriers, campus supervisors, metal detectors)

Peace building- fundamentally altering how conflict can be avoided or addressed through prosocial means. Peace building helps students develop a vocabulary for discussing their perspective and consider viewpoints of others. (Class meetings, Informal circles, Impromptu conversations)

Peacemaking- focuses on the use of dialogue and conflict resolution, especially through forums that purposefully lead individuals to greater knowledge of themselves and others. (Formal class circles, Victim offender dialogue, High stakes conferences w/large community)

Types of Circles:

1. Sequential Circles- allow each individual to have a voice in the conversation. Each member responds to the question and then passes the talking piece to the next person when finished.

2. Fishbowl Circles- can be either sequential or non sequential. The inner circle includes an empty chair or two to allow people from outer circle to temporarily join the discussion.

3. NON-Sequential Circles- operate as a discussion, during which levels of participation is set by the members. As with sequential circles, a talking piece is used so that one person at a time speaks. Use when you want students to speak at length.