restorative practices in schools: circle in the square nancy riestenberg school climate specialist

Restorative Practices in Schools: Circle in the Square

Nancy Riestenberg

School Climate Specialist

Pause. Listen. Breathe.

education.state.mn.us 2

reductionsName;

Where you live and where you work;

Your favorite spring food.

• Introductions3

• Review of Restorative Measures in Minnesota

• Review of Research on Restorative Measures

• Reflections on the Alphabet: RM, PBIS, & SEL

• Opportunities and Challenges

Outline


• For each slide, give yourself a score:

– 2 points for “I knew that!”

– 1 point for “I didn’t know that…”

– All Prizes will be awarded!

Keep track of your knowledge


• They build community & relationships

• Accountability is to the person hurt and the school, not just the student handbook

• Students are actively involved in fixing their mistakes

• Support is given to the person harmed as well as the person who does the harm

• Harm is seen as a teachable moment and a chance for face to face problem-solving

– Circle in the Square, Riestenberg 2012

Restorative Schools are transparent and intentional


Restorative Measures: fair practice

Person(s) harmed

Person(s)who did harm

Community

conflict/problem/harm done : •talk it through•identify solutions•restore order

• What happened?• What were you

thinking of at the time?

• What have you thought about since?

• Who has been affected by what you have done? In what way?

• What do you think you need to do to make things right?

• What happened?• What were you

thinking of at the time?

• What have you thought about since?

• Who has been affected by what you have done? In what way?

• What do you think you need to do to make things right?

• What did you think when you realized what had happened?

• What impact has this incident had on you and others?

• What has been the hardest thing for you?

• What do you think needs to happen to make things right?

• What did you think when you realized what had happened?

• What impact has this incident had on you and others?

• What has been the hardest thing for you?

• What do you think needs to happen to make things right?

Restorative Measures: The Practices

• Restorative Group Conferencing

• Incident-based: addressing harm

• One or two meetings• Face to face, in a

circle, with a trained Facilitator

• Circle Process

• Incident and other issues maybe addressed as needed

• Can be on-going • Face to face, in Circle,

with a talking piece and trained Circle Keeper



Welcome

Perspective

Empathy

Trust and empowerment

Thoughts, emotions, actions

Identify strengths and needs

Plan and next steps

What happened?What were you

thinking? What were you feeling?

Who has been affected?What are your

strengths, what do you need to move

on?

What could happen now to meet these

needs and repair the harm?

What next? agreements

Conferencing

From Belinda Hopkins, Transforming Conflict

Peacemaking Circles, Pranis, Stuart, Wedge, 2003

Relational Elements of Circle

Program Evaluation showed the need for Whole School Implementation

Evaluations

• Reduction in behavior referrals and suspensions—Minnesota, Pennsylvania

• Improved attendance, behavior—Oakland, CA

• Alternative to expulsion; family, participant, administrator satisfaction—Minneapolis

• Improved school climate—Hull, Scotland

• 90% conference agreement, participant satisfaction—Colorado

• Parent willingness to trust school on other issues as well—Australia

» Corrigan, 2012

• New York Civil Liberties Union 2009 report– ‘successful schools’ had ‘significantly higher than

average attendance, stability & graduation rates, & lower suspensions” than ‘metal detector schools.’

– Recommended mandated training on restorative practices, peer mediation and conflict resolution

• New Zealand:– Suspensions of Maori Students reduced by 81%

– Exclusions of Maori and non-Maori students halved

– Academic achievement improved 10.8% in schools implementing restorative practices including above the national average improvement for Maori students

Other Evaluations

14

Some

Few

All

Restorative Practices Triangle: Whole School

Prevention & skill building; community building

Restorative group conferencing, Circle to repair harm

Early Intervention: mediation, restorative chats, classroom circles

Re-Build Relationships

Repair Relationships

Re-Affirm Relationships

16

Empathy

• The more we know of each other, the less likely we are to hurt each other.

Build the skills of empathy


18

Continuum of Restorative Practices

Building Community Repairing Harm

Restorative dialogue between several students

Conference/circle with a small group of

students

Community conference /circle with students, parents and teachers

Affective Statements

Community building circles

From Thorsborne & Vinegrad, also, Costello, Wachtel & Wachtel and Mind Up! Curriculum

Classroom circle with a whole class

Breathe

Why Breath? The Amygdala and Mindful Awareness

Sens-ory

Input

AmygdalaPrefrontal

Cortex

ConsciousResponse

and Learning

Amygdala PrefrontalCortex

Fight, Flight Freeze Response From The MindUp! Curriculum

The Circle Filmhttp://youtube.com/watch?v=RaI1PiobsGw


http://youtube.com/watch?v=RaI1PiobsGw

• What elements of restorative measures did you hear in that clip?

• if you did a similar informational video for your school, – What situation would you use?

– and who would you cast?

Pair/Share


Restorative Values

• Respect• Honesty• Humility• Sharing• Courage• Inclusivity• Empathy• Trust • Forgiveness & Love

Peacemaking Circles, Pranis, Stuart & Wedge

RP, SEL and PBIS

Some thoughts about the alphabet

• Formal system: rule based, punishment for compliance

• PBIS: teach pro-social behaviors, rule based, rewards over punishment for compliance

• SEL: teach self management and awareness, self discipline outside the social context

• RM: teach social engagement through relational practices that focus on individual and community well-being and accountability

» Morrison and Vaandering

Discipline Approaches in Schools


• Circle process provides a way of teaching social skills and the behaviors we want to see, while under-scoring relationship and community

• Restorative interventions provide processes that use the skills we teach

• Can respond to just the individual, but RM’s strength is in that it provides a community response

• Involves with respect family, youth, staff• Offers opportunity to be culturally competent

» Riestenberg

Integration of Restorative Practices with SEL & PBIS


• School-Wide PBIS framework has shelves for all practices

• Environmental change, focusing on the adult behavior first

• Integration:– Circle to re-enforce relationship while teaching

academics or SEL

– Restorative intervention provides the leverage of relationship to support behavior change

Theory and Practice


Minneapolis Triangle

• An example of the integration of various restorative, social emotional learning and positive behaviors programming around tiered levels of support.

• Minneapolis Public Schools

Early Intervention

Prevention & Skill-building

Alternatives to Suspension: •Peer Mediation•Conflict Resolution Training•Circle to Repair Harm

Return from Suspension,Administrative Transfer or School Crime Diversion:•Victim Offender Meetings•Family/Community Group Conferences

Classroom and Peace-keeping Circles:•Morning Meeting•Circles for SEL-Second Step•Instruction or Advisory•Staff Meetings•PTA Meetings•IEP Meetings

Minneapolis Public Schools

Intensive Intervention

Fall 2011 (jyb)

Support Each Other

• RP provides other interventions at the yellow and red levels

• Circle provides a way of delivering content, especially SEL, that strengthens relationships at the same time as helping adults see each child

• PBIS as a framework provides the attention needed to effectively implement programming

• Disproportionate Minority Representation in Suspensions and Expulsions

• Bullying

• Implementation: building and stoking the RP fire

Issues--Challenges

• In Minnesota, Students of Color are more likely to be suspended than White students:– Black students—7 times more likely– American Indian students—5 times more likely– Hispanic students—2 times more likely

• America Indian students are 2% of the student population, and 10 % of the students expelled

• Black students are 9 % of the student population, and 13% of the students expelled.

• 2013 Report to the Legislature; http://education.state.mn.us/MDE/StuSuc/StuRight/StuDisc/Expul/index.html

Disproportionality in Suspensions, Expulsions

• Youth who are suspended and expelled are at greater risk of being referred to the juvenile justice system.

• Restorative justice offers an alternative to zero-tolerance policies and a way to keep youth of color in schools and out of the correctional system.

• School Based Restorative Justice as an alternative to Zero tolerance Policies – Lessons from West Oakland, Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice, UC Berkeley, School of Law 2010

Restorative Justice as Alternative

• Who is affected? Students, administrators, family members, parents, friends, teams, neighbors, teachers, staff, police, other schools, the IT department, janitors, the lunch lady…

• Which is to say:

• “Bullying is a relationship problem that requires relationship solutions.”

– Pepler & Craig http://www.education.com/reference/article/role-of-adults-in-preventing-bullying/

Bullying and Cyberbullying

http://www.education.com/reference/article/role-of-adults-in-preventing-bullying/

http://www.education.com/reference/article/role-of-adults-in-preventing-bullying/

• Practices that sustain “safe and just school communities, grounded in the premise that human beings are relational and thrive in contexts of social engagement over control.”

Morrison, 2011, Pranis, 2007

Restorative Practices are Relational

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• Takes time—to implement any new program fully take 2-5 years:– To bring people together

– To plan

– To train and coach

– To collect and review data

– To participate in a restorative process

Implementation

“On the whole, programs in which implementation was systematically monitored tended to be more effective than programs without any monitoring.”

– The Effectiveness of Whole-School Antibullying Programs: A Synthesis of Evaluation Research, Smith, Schneider, Smith & Ananiadou, School Psychology Review, 2004, Volume 33, No. 4, pp. 547-560.


• 5.5.2: Restorative approaches provide an effective, flexible range of strategies to prevent and respond to bullying, but need to be used consistently and throughout the whole school

– (Full Report, pp. 99-102, Section 4.3.6; general findings, pp. 73-82, Section 4.1). Thompson & Smith, 2010

The Use and Effectiveness of Anti-Bullying Strategies in Schools, 2010


• provide whole staff training – adult modeling is critical … and staff need training in restorative approaches before attempting to apply it to a bullying incident

• embed restorative approaches with the students – including training any peer schemes in restorative approaches

• direct sanctions are needed as a back up if the restorative process fails.

» Thompson & Smith, 2010

If adopting restorative approaches as a whole-school approach:


• Preliminary analyses indicate:– Students report making better decisions and avoiding

expulsion proceedings;

– Significant reductions in number of suspensions during referral year vs. one year later;

– Improvements in communication and school connections for both students and family.

• Applying Restorative Justice Practices to Minneapolis Public School Students Recommended for Possible Expulsion: A Pilot Program Evaluation of the Family and Youth Restorative Conference Program

Minneapolis Public Schools Alterative to Expulsion program evaluation, 2011


Final Thought


Behavior is influenced by food, sleep and exercise


Smile at kids.

Call them by name.

Show interestin their lives.

Thank you!

Nancy RiestenbergSchool Climate SpecialistMinnesota Department of [email protected]

• Circle in the Square: Building Community and Repairing Harm in Schools, Nancy Riestenberg, 2012. Living Justice Press, www.livingjusticepress.org.

• Corrigan, M. (2012) Restorative Practices in New Zealand: The Evidence Base. Ministry of Education. Contact [email protected].

• Gun Free Schools Act of 1994. http://www2.ed.gov/legislation/ESEA/sec14601.html.

• McMorris, B.J, et. al. Applying Restorative Justice Practices to Minneapolis Public School Students Recommended for Possible Expulsion: A Pilot Program Evaluation of the Family and Youth Restorative Conference Program poster session. Contact Dr. Barbara McMorris, University of Minnesota at [email protected].

• MindUp Curriculum: Brain-focused Strategies for Learning—and Living. The Hawn Foundation, Scholastic, 2011. www.thehawnfoundation.org.

• Minneapolis Public Schools, Student Support Services, (612) 668-0867, [email protected]

• Morrison, BE., & Vaandering, D. (2012). Restorative Justice: Pedagogy, Praxis, and Discipline, Journal Of School Violence, 11:2, 138-155. Retrieved 4/10/2012 at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15388220.2011.653322.

• Morrison, B. (2011). From social control to social engagement: Enabling the “time and space” to talk through restorative justice and responsive regulation. In R. Rosenfeld, K. Quinet, & C. Garcia (Eds.), Contemporary issues in criminology theory and research (pp. 97-106). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

References

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• Minnesota Department of Education– Student Success—Safe Schools http://education.state.mn.us/mde/index.html .– Implementation of Effective Practices http://education.state.mn.us/MDE/EdExc/BestPrac/ImpleEffecPrac/index.html

• Positive Behavior Intervention Supports, http://pbismn.org/ .

• Pranis, K (2007). Restorative Values. In G. Johnstone & D. Van Ness (Eds.), Handbook of Restorative justice (pp. 59-74). Cullompton, England: Willan.

• Restoring Safe School Communities: a whole school response to bullying violence and alienation , Brenda Morrison, Federation Press, 2007, www.federationpress.com.au.

• Thompson, F., Smith, P.K., (2010). The Use and Effectiveness of Anti-Bullying Strategies in Schools. Research Report DFE-RR098, Department for Education, United Kingdom.

• Ttofi, M.M., Farrington, D.P., & Baldry, C.A. (2008). Effectiveness of programs to reduce school bullying: a systematic review. Stockholm: Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention.

• Ttofi, M. M. & Farrington, D. P. (2008) Bullying: short-term and long-term effects, and the importance of Defiance Theory in explanation and prevention. Victims and Offenders, 3 (2), 289-312.

• Ttofi, M. M. & Farrington, D. P. (2008). Reintegrative shaming theory, moral emotions and bullying behavior. Aggressive Behaviour, 34 (4), 352 – 368.

References


restorative practices in schools: circle in the square nancy riestenberg school climate specialist

Documents

conflict slide

order slide

restorative schools

restorative practices

harm harm

review of restorative

problemsolving circle

meetings face