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LATEST NEWS European Forum for Restorative Justice, Barcelona Conference - see our News page for details of the plenary speech delivered by Belinda Hopkins news section We are conducting a national survey on restorative approaches in UK schools and constructing a national database we need your help ...more Director of Transforming Conflict, Belinda Hopkins, has now completed her doctoral research at Reading University on the implementation of restorative approaches in schools ...more
Restorative Approaches and Practices
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Restorative Approaches Restorative practices in school are inspired by the philosophy and practices of restorative justice, which puts repairing harm done to relationships and people over and above the need for assigning blame and dispensing punishment. Key values create an ethos of respect, inclusion, accountability and taking responsibility, commitment to relationships, impartiality, being nonjudgemental, collaboration, empowerment and emotional articulacy. Key skills include active listening, facilitating dialogue and problemsolving, listening to and expressing emotion and empowering others to take ownership of problems. Processes and practices include interventions when harm has happened, such as restorative enquiry (aka, in some circumstances , corridor conferences), mediation (aka miniconferencing), community conferencing (aka group mediation and/or problemsolving circles). However there are also processes and practices that help to prevent harm and conflict occurring and which build a sense of belonging, safety and social responsibility. These include Circle Time and Restorative Pedagogy (teachers modelling the values and skills and creating opportunities for their development amongst the students whatever the subject being taught).
The restorative approach is based on the belief that the people best placed to resolve a conflict or a problem are the people directly involved, and that imposed solutions are less effective, less educative and possibly less likely to be honoured. In order to engage in a restorative approach to conflict and challenging behaviour people need certain attitudes and skills. Skillsbased training can develop both restorative skills and attitudes. It can help participants to identify a variety of applications of these skills to meet the needs of the whole school community. The ultimate aim of the training and the project is to build a strong, mutually respectful, safe and inclusive
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