Donna Douglas, School Psychologist FCPS Daniel St. Rose, School Social Worker FCPS Karen Lieberman, Alt. School Programs FCPS

    Provide a Brief Overview of Restorative Practices.

Provide a Brief Overview of Positive Behavior Support Review how Restorative Practices fit into a PBS framework Provide specific examples of how Restorative Practices can be used at each level of intervention in the PBS framework

• Traditional – School rules violated – – – – – – Justice focuses on establishing guilt Accountability=Punishment Action focuses on offender Victim is often ignored Rules and intent outweigh outcomes No opportunities for remorse or amends • Restorative – People and relationships violated – – – – – Justice identifies needs and obligations Accountability=understand ing impact and repairing harm Offender, victim, and school all have direct roles Offender is responsible for behavior and repairing harm Allows for amends and expression of remorse

     Emphasizes harms and resulting obligations Keeps the victims’ needs/interests central Encourages offenders to understand and take responsibility for harm Involves dialogue and the community Promotes individual and societal healing and growth

Restorative Practices ARE Victim centered and victim sensitive A vehicle for victims to have a voice An opportunity for taking responsibility for your actions A vehicle for offenders to listen to those affected by their actions An opportunity to learn how to start changing behavior Restorative Practices ARE NOT Soft on offenders A way for the offender to avoid consequences Only for juveniles or less serious offenses New processes The opposite of or substitute for an existing system

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Harm focused:

How have individuals been harmed and what do they need?

Identify, repair and prevent future harm.

Engagement:

process.

their actions.

Victim, offender, community, and school are engaged through a facilitated dialogue

Responsibility/Obligations:

Individuals accept responsibility for

Repair:

Individuals agree to repair harm that has been done.

Prevention:

Individuals learn from their mistakes.

A student misbehaves in class and her teacher asks her to leave. The student is suspended from school and comes back. Nothing is resolved; nothing is restored. With restorative practices, the student is held accountable and given support to resolve the issue, repair the harm and make a plan to ensure that the misbehavior doesn’t happen again. Relationships are restored and community is built.

Ted Wachtel, International Institute for Restorative Practices

http://www.iirp.org/westphilahigh/

    Designed to support and reinforce positive academic and social behavior through comprehensive systems Focuses on teaching children positive pro social skills directly in real context Supports positive relationships between students, teachers, staff and parents.

When used in a comprehensive manner, combines classroom, school, home and community efforts

CONTINUUM OF SCHOOL-WIDE INSTRUCTIONAL & POSITIVE BEHAVIOR SUPPORT Primary Prevention: School-/Classroom Wide Systems for All Students, Staff, & Settings ~5% ~15% Tertiary Prevention: Specialized Individualized Systems for Students with High-Risk Behavior Secondary Prevention: Specialized Group Systems for Students with At-Risk Behavior ~80% of Students

Red Zone: intensive, individual interventions, assessment-based Yellow Zone: targeted group interventions, focus on “at risk” students Green Zone: universal practices, focus on “all students”, pro-active teaching and prevention

  PBS gives schools the structure within which to teach and reinforce positive pro-social skills, and to consistently provide intervention designed to increase the demonstration of these skills.

RP give schools the opportunity to focus on repairing relationships rather than focusing on punitive responses.

  RP is not an add-on program, nor is it solely a group of graded responses to wrongdoing.

Using RP within the PBS framework allows a school to focus on building, supporting, and repairing critical emotional and social skills in students, staff, and community.

     Restorative Practices Involves dialogue and the community Promotes individual and societal healing and growth Encourages offenders to understand and take responsibility for harm Emphasizes harms and resulting obligations Keeps the victims’ needs/interests central    comprehensive systems Focuses on teaching skills directly in real context Supports positive  and parents.

comprehensive manner,

INTENSIVE REPAIRING HARM CONFERENCING TARGETED GROUP INTERVENTION TAKING RESPONSIBILITY Problem Solving Circles UNIVERSAL PRACTICES DEVELOPING SOCIAL/EMOTIONAL CAPACITY CIRCLES

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Circles

Circles are used throughout RP in a variety of forms and for numerous purposes.

At the Universal Practices level, circles typically focus on increasing community and social/emotional understanding.

Purposes might include community building, developing understanding, celebration, support, community problem solving, checking in and checking out, etc.

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Problem Solving Circles

Focus is on taking responsibility Can be on-going or time limited Identify potential members using PBS data Interview members to ensure understanding and willingness to participate Topics or concerns to address might include: attendance issues, failing grades, non-compliance, girls groups, bullying, reintegration etc.

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Conferencing

Conferencing is the most formal restorative process and can be used to supplement or supplant other traditional remedies such as suspension.

Involves all parties directly involved, their respective supporters and others in the community who have been affected.

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Conferencing (con’t)

Seeks to identify and repair harm caused in a relationship and prevent recurrence.

Participation is voluntary and based on parties willingness and readiness.

Agreements are consensus-based.

1.

2.

3.

4.

Pre-conferencing – occurs separately with each party.

Identification and preparation of supporters and other involved parties.

Conference – may lead to agreement to take additional remedial actions.

Follow-up.

Conferencing may be used for: Interpersonal conflicts (student-student; student staff; staff-staff) Bullying/Harrassment Fighting/Assault Vandalism Theft Truancy Drug/Alcohol Use - Etc.

     What are the needs in your building?

To what level do your current practices reflect a restorative philosophy?

What would you like to see in your program?

How will your current practices need to change in order to reflect what you would like to see?

What might be the roadblocks to change?

   What are your strategies for addressing these roadblocks?

Develop an Action Plan.

Schedule time to follow-up, review, and adjust.

Restorative Practices Behavior Support

can enhance

Positive

by building a focus on respect and relationships into the system.