Restorative Practices in Schools

Margaret Thorsborne, David Vinegrad

• Editorial: Routledge
• Año: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351704045
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Education
• Categoría: Education General

This work helps in rethinking behaviour management in the whole school through the use of restorative justice methods. School conferences have proved remarkably successful in teaching students about their responsibilities and accountability to other people. This manual fulfils an important role by outlining the techniques to learn and apply when planning and facilitating conferences. It includes guidance on: analysing current school practice; deciding whether to hold a conference; preparing a conference; convening and facilitating a conference; and, follow-up after a conference. The book contains many key documents such as preparation checklist, conference script, typical agreement, evaluation sheet and case studies. It is suitable for ages 8-16.

Chapter 1
Restorative justice and behaviour management

Enlightened educational communities are beginning to express concern over the increasing numbers of suspensions and exclusions as schools strive to maintain control over changing populations. Allied agencies such as police and welfare services have concerns that the school system may be contributing to an increase in crime with the use of such sanctions, rather than building a sense of community and citizenship. Research has shown us that the process of alienation and stigmatisation of wrongdoers risks the formation of a subculture within and beyond the school, intent on rejecting the norms of acceptable behaviour as these young people strive to have their needs for belonging and affiliation met. These outcomes, although never intended, work against the promotion of wellbeing, resilience and connectedness in all students. And it may well be that school policy and practice is not taking into account theories of child and adolescent development, or increasing rates of family breakdown and community disconnection.

Constructive analysis of discipline/behaviour management policy is clearly warranted, and demonstrates that in most cases, schools have traditionally adopted a quasi-judicial approach to the management of student misconduct, modelled on existing western criminal justice systems. What this means in practice for a school is:

• ■ When codified rules have been broken, sanctions must be applied to the wrongdoers
• ■ There is a belief that discipline= punishment=justice which will change behaviour and achieve compliance
• ■ Punishment is the best form of deterrence and it is important to send a clear and strong message to the school community about what is acceptable and what is not
• ■ The authority of the school has been challenged and control must be restored and maintained
• ■ There is pressure on administrators for a quick fix, so that many suspensions and exclusions are the result of organisational convenience
• ■ That justice is seen to be done through punitive sanctions meted out by administrators often far removed from the incident
• ■ That those affected by the behaviour are excluded from decisions about how to respond

In contrast to these values and attitudes are other school-based endeavours which are about negotiated curriculum and democratic classroom rules, civics and citizenship, emotional competencies, catering to individual student needs, and student-centred classrooms. So, on the one hand, the adults in schools are keen to build relationships with and between students because they are clear about the benefits of this approach for improving learning outcomes. But on the other hand, they risk those very relationships by using punishment in an attempt to change behaviour, when research clearly shows that there are other, more effective ways of doing this.

Those schools that are keen to review their current practice and thinking with a view to reforming policy, and/or are dissatisfied with the outcomes of more traditional approaches, may find the following questions useful to stimulate debate and dialogue:

1. What body of research and evidence supports the school’s policies about student behaviour?
2. Who decides what penalties and sanctions are applied to school wrongdoers? How was this decision reached?
3. How does the school justify the use of detentions, suspensions and the exclusion of students?
4. Does the school have different behaviour management procedures for children, adolescents and young adults? Why or why not?
5. How does the school teach emotional intelligence in the curriculum and/or provide conscience-building exercises for wrongdoers?
6. Does the school provide similar levels of professional development for behaviour management as it does for curriculum?
7. What process does the school use to ensure that harmful incidents do not occur again?
8. What process does the school use to ensure collective accountability for harmful behaviour and to establish which parts of the system need to be changed?
9. How are wrongdoers encouraged to take responsibility for their actions? How are they taught to understand the consequences for others of what they have done?
10. How are the needs of victims and their families met by current behaviour management policies?

Practitioners in schools have been quick to recognise both the parallels between the justice system and behaviour management and the potential in notions of restorative justice to reform school behaviour management policy and practice.

Restorative approaches

Just as western criminal justice is being challenged in its failure to curb crime and its increasing prison populations, traditional approaches to behaviour management need to be challenged to cope with increasing levels of family breakdown and community disconnection, the loss of automatic respect for authority, and increasing suspension and exclusion rates. Those attempting to reform our criminal justice systems are moving toward a more restorative approach. Practitioners in schools have been quick to recognise both the parallels between the justice system and behaviour management and the potential in notions of restorative justice to reform school behaviour management policy and practice.

So what do we mean by restorative justice?

Put simply, restorative justice means that:

• ■ Crime (and misconduct) is a fundamental violation of people and interpersonal relationships
• ■ Violations create obligations and liabilities
• ■ Restorative justice seeks to heal and put right the wrongs

(An expansion on these three points can be found in the Recommended Reading section.)

Restorative justice is a participatory and democratic justice that focuses on the community defined by the incident and not just the wrongdoer. It is an approach to harmful behaviour and community conflict that sees wrongdoing as essentially a violation of people and relationships.

The community conference, a well known restorative process, formalises the bringing together of all those responsible for and most affected by wrongful conduct. Individually and collectively people address the causes of the harm and the impact of the harm on those affected, and investigate ways to make amends and minimise the risk of future wrongdoing.

Restorative justice in a school

A ‘just’ school is a place where victims and wrongdoers and their respective communities of care are active participants in processes that ensure equal justice and fairness. Victims are empowered to have their needs met and to have their experience validated. Wrongdoers are able to tell their stories and given the chance to make amends. And finally, the community of care can seek ways to ensure that the incident does not happen again.

Schools that incorporate principles of restorative justice into student management practices can:

• ■ begin to address the root causes of harmful behaviour rather than reacting to the symptoms
• ■ acknowledge that harm from incidents goes beyond just victims and wrongdoers in the school community
• ■ use restorative practices to address the trauma, repair the harm and reintegrate wrongdoer/s back into the community
• ■ find creative and meaningful ways of responding to violations against people and property and develop preventative strategies
• ■ provide a forum where school community members engage with the wrongdoer/s, administrators are released from the demanding task of 'meting out justice', and schools build significant links with their communities
• ■ bring together the community responsible and accountable for the behaviour, so that resources and knowledge, which would otherwise not be utilised, can be activated
• ■ provide the necessary link between Contemporary classrooms and pro-social behaviour management processes across the school
• ■ understand that sometimes a desire for retribution masks a concern for public safety which can be adequately addressed in a restorative way
• ■ make the commitment of time necessary to repairing relationships instead of going down the quick fix path
• ■ "work with" rather than "do to" young wrongdoers.

Restorative practices cannot be viewed as isolated interventions or tools that a school uses only when required. Restorative practices are inextricably linked to all interactions that occur throughout the school day. Clear evidence of a restorative and ‘just’ school can be seen in the language used, ceremonies conducted, curriculum developed, teacher presentations, student programmes, dialogue in newsletters, the physical environment and ‘feel’ of the school. In essence, a restorative intervention cannot be an “add-on” to punitive and retributive policy and practices. A school reflecting on how it manages student behaviour needs to review the complete supportive school environment. Three main areas should be the topic of regular review and the focus for the implementation of restorative practice. These are:

• ■ The provision of programmes that enhance the personal and social competencies of students, teachers and parents, so that daily interactions proceed more positively and generate fewer problems.
• ■ The provision of positive, effective and socially healthy environments for all students.
• ■ The establishment of structures and arrangements so that extra support is available, whenever needed, as an entitlement for all students, and a recognition of the needs of teachers who also need to access sources of support.

Restorative approaches to student management will closely complement ‘protective’ strategies that schools build into their daily programmes. The capacity of schools to prevent, address and ameliorate negative and harmful behaviours is of prime importance. The ‘protective’ stages of primary prevention and subsequent successive interventions are ideal foci for the inclusion of restorative and reintegrative approaches to student behaviour.

Are schools already practising restorative justice?

Some schools have been dissatisfied with high numbers of suspensions and exclusions and the frequent use of deterrents such as detentions, conduct cards etc. This has caused a fundamental rethinking of school justice/discipline systems. As a result, they have formulated alternative approaches, many of which have a restorative philosophy embedded in their practice, and have included contemporary research and information about child and adolescent development.

Most schools have insightful practitioners who have been ‘doing business’ another way for a long time. These classroom teachers incorporate restorative practices on a daily basis in the management of a fair and democratic classroom. As practitioners, they see that relationships are central to managing behaviour and to establishing a supportive environment where the curriculum, behaviour and classroom culture are negotiated and democratic.

Many schools have recognised that a key to a harmonious environment is being able to identify when and how relationships are harmed and to adopt a community wide approach to problem-solving. Protective and preventative programmes currently in schools include (this list is by no means exhaustive):

• ■ Peer Mediation
• ■ Peer Support
• ■ Mental Health Curriculum
• ■ Protective Behaviours
• ■ Responsible Thinking
• ■ Tribes (programme to create a positive school and classroom environment)
• ■ Civics and Citizenship
• ■ Classroom Meetings (often called circles)

These all include some elements that are restorative, place a value on people and relationships and are based on communitarian notions of justice.

The community conference

The community conference, described in detail in this manual, captures the basic philosophy of restorative justice. This manual has been written for schools. The scripted conference, first developed by police in New South Wales, Australia, to divert young wrongdoers away from court, was an adaptation of the Family Group Conference process enshrined in juvenile justice legislation in New Zealand in 1989.

Practitioners in Queensland (Australia) schools in the mid 1990’s were quick to see the potential benefits of the process for dealing with serious incidents of misconduct and harm, particularly bullying and violence, and conducted two twelve month pilot programmes to evaluate its effectiveness. Further pilots have been conducted in NSW and Victoria. The evaluations demonstrated that the process had a great deal to offer those schools which valued notions of relationship management rather than more traditional, punitive approaches.

Outcomes included:

• ■ Participants being highly satisfied with the process and its outcomes
• ■ High compliance rate with the terms of the agreement by wrongdoers
• ■ Low rates of repeated wrongdoing
• ■ A majority of wrongdoers felt they were more accepted, cared about and more closely connected to other conference participants following conferencing
• ■ A majority of victims felt safer and more able to manage similar situations than before conferencing
• ■ The majority of conference participantshad closer relationships with other conference participants after conferencing
• ■ All school administrators felt that conferencing reinforced school values
• ■ Most family members expressed positive perceptions of the school and comfort in approaching the school on other matters
• ■ Nearly all schools in the trial reported they had changed their thinking about managing behaviour from a punitive to a more restorative approach

The majority of conferences were in response to assaults and serious victimisation, followed by property damage and theft. Conferences were also used to address incidents involving drugs, damaging the school’s reputation, truanting, verbal abuse, persistent disruption in class, and in one case, a bomb threat.

This approach to relationship management has now been adopted by a wide range of schools in many countries, and ongoing research supports the view that the processes and philosophy of restorative justice have enormous benefits for our schools as we strive to develop young people who will make a positive contribution to their communities. ■