Tag: Restorative Practices
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Q&A: Training Restorative Justice Facilitators to Understand Structural Inequities
Q: How can I help the facilitators I train in my program to understand the structural dimensions of crime? I worry that they are too focused on the interpersonal dimensions of crime and are ignoring the larger harms and roots of conflict in race-, class-, and gender-based systemic inequities. A: This is a common issue…
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United Nations Roundtable on Restorative Pedagogy
Last month, I was honored to be invited to be part of a roundtable on Restorative Pedagogy hosted by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Here is a description of the roundtables from the UNODC press release. “From criminology, psychology and political studies degrees, to university courses for the social workers, lawyers…
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As School Contracts with Police are Called into Question, Consider Restorative Justice
We are in a time of immense change in our country and one thing that is being reconsidered is the role of police and punitive sanctions more broadly in schools. Research has shown that the presence of police and punitive sanctions in schools often drives students —particularly minority and poor students—out of school, resulting in…
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Restorative Circles: A Student Perspective
This video from San Francisco Unified School District and features students of all ages reflecting on their experience being part of Restorative Circles in the classroom. I love hearing their thoughts! Keen to give restorative circles a try? Start with a relationship building circle! You can find instructions for facilitation a Connection Circle here.
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Q&A Facilitating Circles Online
Question: I want to continue to hold circles with my students/staff during this time of social distancing. I feel we need the connection now more than ever! How can I facilitate a circle through video chat without the ability to actually sit in a circle together or pass a talking piece? Answer: I agree! Cultivating…
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Strengths-Based Restorative Justice Agreements: Using Art to Make Things Right
Restorative justice practitioners place a great deal of emphasis on being strengths-based. This means identifying and supporting an individual’s assets: the positive passions, skills, interests, and connections that make them unique. Taking the time to identify these strengths with participants has many benefits. It helps to combat feelings of stigmatizing shame by showing that you…
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Tips and Tricks for Maintaining Facilitator Neutrality in Pre-Conferences
The pre-conference is, in many ways, the most important part of the restorative justice process. A bad conference, more often than not, is the fault of poor pre-conferencing. Pre-conferencing refers to the individual meetings that the facilitators hold with the responsible party and harmed party and their respective support people prior to bringing the parties…
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Restorative Justice and #MeToo
The New York Times recently published an opinion piece titled #MeToo Doesn’t Always Have to Mean Prison. It is an excellent article that highlights the benefits of making a restorative justice response available to those who have experienced sexual harm. As the article notes, “#MeToo rightly emphasizes victims’ healing and accountability for the people who harmed them.…
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Book Launch: The Little Book of Restorative Teaching Tools
My first book, The Little Book of Restorative Teaching Tools, will be released on March 10, 2020. There are a few events coming up, both locally in Colorado and online, to celebrate the launch. If you are interested in learning more about the book, I would love to have you attend one of these events!…
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The Power of Restorative Justice Education
Learning about restorative justice changed my life. I remember vividly the first time I read The Little Book Restorative Justice when it was assigned in a Nonviolence class at Colorado College. I sat up in my dorm room bed underlining almost every line and drawing big stars in the margins. I was so excited to…
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Article on Sustained Restorative Dialogue Published in Contemporary Justice Review
I am very excited to have an article Amy Giles-Mitson and I wrote on the Sustained Restorative Dialogue process published in the Contemporary Justice Review. The Sustained Restorative Dialogue was an effort to apply restorative processes to addressing the broader culture that gives rise to sexual harm. Organizing and facilitating the dialogue was one of…
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What is Restorative Justice?
The exact definition of restorative justice has been a source of great debate and remains contentious within the restorative justice field. Broadly speaking, two general conceptions of restorative justice have been put forth: a process conception and a values conception.[1] The process conception sees restorative justice as, “a process that brings together all stakeholders affected…
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Restorative practices in residence halls at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
An article I wrote about the use of Restorative Practices in the Residence Halls at Victoria University was just published in Conflict Resolution Quarterly. You can find the full article here.
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If a Picture is Worth a Thousand Words, How Can We Illustrate Restorative Justice?
The challenge of describing restorative justice and how the philosophy and approach differs from the conventional justice system is one that practitioners and scholars have grappled with since the beginning of the movement. The retributive approach to justice is so culturally ingrained that it can be difficult to fully communicate the restorative paradigm and the…
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How Can Circles Benefit Spiritual Communities?
About a month ago, a local church approached our team about how they could implement restorative practices in their community. They are a very diverse church with many English language learners who have recently moved to New Zealand from other countries. Especially because of these language and cultural barriers, it can be difficult for all…
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Beyond the Carrot and the Stick
What is the best way to promote good, pro-social behavior? Is it rewarding good behavior or punishing bad behavior? The carrot or the stick? This question has been asked across a wide range of contexts from the criminal justice system to schools to workplaces to international relations. Those in authority in each context have tried…
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Sustained Restorative Dialogue – Understanding and Preventing Sexual Harm on Campus
Over the past two years, Victoria University of Wellington (VUW) has taken significant steps towards becoming a Restorative University. This has involved the use of restorative processes both in a reactive way, as a response to misconduct or incidents of harm, and a proactive way, in order to build community, enhance belonging and mutual responsibility,…
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Be Real, Love, Empathize: Insights for Facilitators from Carl Rogers
While restorative justice is not therapy, it often has therapeutic outcomes for participants. Particularly at the pre-conference stage, the facilitator’s role can feel akin to that of a therapist, helping to guide and support clients on their own journey towards healing, learning and growth. This week, I have been reading some of Carl Rogers’ work…
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How can the circle manage power differences between participants?
Type of process: Circle Conference Participants: 2 Students – Shane and Brian Student Advocate – Elizabeth Professor – Paul 2 Facilitators Referring agent: Student Advocate Factual Synopsis: A dispute over the grading of an assignment between a professor and two students expanded into an interpersonal conflict and rumors that damaged the students’ reputations within the department with other…
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Peace in the Soil
I recently heard Siddhartha Mukherjee speak on an episode of Ted Radio Hour titled Rethinking Medicine. In his talk, Mukherjee notes that the prevailing medical approach (in the western medicine tradition) to this point has been to “have disease, take pill, kill something.” Mukherjee traces the prevalence of this approach to the antibiotic revolution, which…
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Restorative Management
Increasingly, restorative practices are being applied in a wide range of sectors, reaching far beyond the criminal justice system and school discipline. The Chair of Restorative Justice at Victoria University is involved in implementing restorative practices in the University residential halls, in workplaces, in elder abuse cases, in the police complaints process, with surgeons as…
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The Restorative Community: Between Individualist and Collectivist Cultural Orientations
While living in China, the difference between Individualist and Collectivist cultures was something I frequently contemplated. I remember a Chinese friend teaching me to play what he described as Chinese poker, a game in which players team up to defeat the randomly selected “rich one.” At the end of the game, either the “rich one”…
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Video: Restorative Justice, Restorative Practices, Restorative Community
You may have heard the terms Restorative Justice, Restorative Practices, and Restorative Community, but what does each term mean and how do they relate to each other? This video endeavors to offer a clear explanation of how Restorative Practices, including Restorative Justice, function together to create a Restorative Community. A Restorative Community can be intentionally…
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Restorative Practices in the Workplace
Recently, the New York Times published an article about a study Google did called “Project Aristotle.” Examining 180 different teams across Google and charting every factor imaginable from team demographics to motivations, the study endeavored figure out what makes a team successful. The outcome of the study showed that the two most important behaviors for…
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What is the Difference Between Guilt and Shame?
Type of process: Community Group Conference Conference Participants: Offender- Elizabeth (16) Offender Support- Elizabeth’s mother (Sarah) Offender- Ann (16) Offender Support- Ann’s father (Joe) and Joe’s girlfriend (Jenna) 2 Facilitators 2 Community Members Kohl’s Loss Prevention Officer Criminal Charges Pending: Theft (misdemeanor) Referring agent: Police Department Factual Synopsis: Two 16-year-olds stole clothing and jewelry from Kohl’s.…
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Restorative Justice Has Something for Everyone
State Representative Pete Lee has successfully passed several bills advancing Restorative Justice in Colorado since he was first elected in 2011. The most recent of these bills was passed unanimously. At the Colorado Restorative Justice Symposium in September, Representative Lee explained how he achieved this astounding bipartisan support. “To the Libertarian Republicans who are skeptical of…
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How is the Outcome of Restorative Justice Different from the Traditional Court System?
Type of process: Community Group Conference Conference Participants: Offender –Maddie (14) Offender Support- Maddie’s mother 2 Facilitators 2 Community Members 2 Animal Control Police Officers Criminal Charges Pending: Animal Abuse Referring agent: Police Department Factual Synopsis: Two fourteen-year-old girls took a pet chinchilla to the park and filmed themselves making it “swim” in the creek. Maddie’s…