What are Restorative Practices?
Restorative Practices are a set of tools used to develop healthy communities through building, maintaining, and repairing relationships among community members. Restorative Practices are designed to foster healthy dialogue and increase mutual understanding and empathy among the participants, leading to an overall sense of connection and increasing the capacity to handle conflict in a way that promotes growth and repairs relationships. Restorative Practices are an alternative to punitive action and offer a way to handle conflict that restores trust and connection within the community. They can be used in many settings such as classrooms, school systems, workplaces, non-profit organizations, faith-based organizations or community groups.
Schools are adopting Restorative Practices because they incorporate the values of Positive Behavioral Intervention and Supports (PBIS), Social Emotional Learning (SEL), Trauma Informed Teaching and Culturally Responsive Teaching. They provide an avenue for young people and adults to deal with the everyday challenges of being part of a community. Community Building Circles are the foundational practice of this work and an important aspect of a restorative approach.
We offer three tiers of facilitation and training in Restorative Practices, which are: Community Building Circles, Restorative Chats, and Restorative Conferences.
How are they related to Restorative Justice?
Restorative Practices have grown from the principles of Restorative Justice, which is a community-based way of addressing crime and repairing harm that has been practiced in many cultures around the world for ages. In contrast to the modern-day criminal justice system which is based on shame and punishment as a response to crime, Restorative Justice incorporates the values of inclusion, relationship, responsibility, and reparation as an approach to dealing with conflict and harm. Through a confidential and in-depth circle process, all parties involved in the crime have a chance to speak and be heard, and come to an agreement about how to move forward together. Restorative Justice often leads to a greater sense of resolution, satisfaction, and justice on all sides, offering an opportunity for healing and repair.
Partnership
We are proud to partner with Communities for Restorative Justice (C4RJ) in providing school-based circle facilitation, training, consulting and coaching for school districts within C4RJ partner communities. C4RJ is a non-profit that provides Restorative Justice as a complement or diversion to the Criminal Justice system. They partner with over 32 police departments in Hampshire, Middlesex, Suffolk and Norfolk Counties, as well as the Diversion Programs of the Middlesex and Suffolk District Attorney's offices to rebuild trust and offer a path forward in the wake of crime.