News & Announcements
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- Written by Joshua Wachtel
"From the schoolhouse to State House, 'academic skills' have been emphasized, tested, and reported upon, but another essential aspect of a child’s education — social and emotional learning (SEL) — has been underemphasized or altogether forgotten — with serious consequences to children, schools, and communities," write Jennifer Buffett, member of the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) Board of Directors and NoVo Foundation President and Co-Chair, and Timothy Shriver, CASEL Board of Directors Chair and Special Olympics CEO, in an open letter to the American people.
This letter appears at the beginning of a report released last month called "The Missing Piece: A National Teacher Survey on How Social and Emotional Learning Can Empower Children and Transform Schools," co-authored by John Bridgeland, Mary Bruce, and Arya Hariharan of Civic Enterprises with Peter D. Hart Research Associates.
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- Written by Joshua Wachtel
Tim Fisher, the family group conferencing manager in Camden, UK, discusses an innovative program to use FGC (also known as FGDM) with adults.
The following are excerpts from an article by Tim Fisher, the family group conferencing manager in Camden, UK, "What child protection can teach adult safeguarding - and vice versa." In this piece, which appeared in Community Care, Fisher explains how "At Camden Council we are following in the footsteps of local authorities like Hampshire and Kent by commissioning family group conferences for adult service users and their families."
Family group conferencing (FGC) has long since entered the mainstream of social work practice in children’s services, with three-quarters of local authorities commissioning child welfare FGCs, according to the Family Rights Group. Now increasingly FGC and restorative approaches are on the radar of commissioners in adult services, resulting in child welfare FGC professionals being asked to deliver adult FGCs and embarking on interesting collaborations with their adults' services colleagues.
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- Written by Joshua Wachtel
Katy Hutchison, of British Columbia, Canada, lost her husband when he was brutally beaten to death by teenagers at a party in their neighborhood. Katy would later meet the young man who murdered her husband, and she now advocates and speaks about restorative justice. This moving talk incorporates the restorative lessons she learned from her father, the lessons she tries to teach her own children, and the restorative approach she believes would work better not only for addressing wrongdoing throughout society, but also for changing lives and building community through its use in schools.
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- Written by Joshua Wachtel
This Friday, June 21, at 9:15 am, IIRP assistant professor and director of continuing education Dr. John Bailie will present a breakout session titled, "Restorative Schools and Restorative Zones: A Whole-Community Approach to Limiting Youth Contact with Police and Justice Systems," at the Fourth National Conference on Restorative Justice in Toledo, Ohio. The theme for the conference is "Keepin' It Real – Race and Restorative Justice." John sent along the following to describe the scope of his talk, which is relevant to IIRP's work with diverse populations in urban areas:
Restorative practices has the potential to offer an overarching framework, comprised of research-based interventions and interpersonal skills, which can transform how a complexly layered civil society develops social capital, builds community and responds to harm.
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- Written by Joshua Wachtel
A prison on the River Danube by Diana Allesok at Flickr Creative Commons."Talks Behind the Walls: Restorative Encounters in Prison Settings," a new paper by Dóra Szegő (Researcher, Foresee Research Group, Hungary) and Dr. Borbala Fellegi (Executive Director, Foresee Research Group, Hungary) published in the Internet Journal of Restorative Justice (IJRJ), tells a story of the promise and challenges of implementing restorative approaches in youth and adult prison settings in Hungary. The following excerpts explain the scope of the report:
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- Written by Laura Mirsky
via Flickr Creative Commons User: It's Our City
The International Institute for Restorative Practices (IIRP) Graduate School has received a multi-year grant from The Philadelphia Foundation’s Fund for Children to implement restorative practices in 10 Philadelphia School District high schools and middle schools.
The IIRP’s SaferSanerSchools Whole-School Change Program will help the schools build relationships between students, staff and parents; create a sense of community; improve student behavior; reduce violence and bullying and establish school climates conducive to learning. Rather than just reacting to incidents after they occur, the program implements proactive techniques that foster relationships and a sense of belonging.
The IIRP’s Whole-School Change Program has been implemented at Bethlehem’s Freedom and Liberty high schools for two years and at Allentown’s William Allen and Louis E. Dieruff high schools for one year. The Bethlehem schools reported significant reductions in disciplinary incidents, particularly following the second year of implementation. In the Allentown schools, discipline referrals are being addressed in a restorative manner and the school climate is improving, due to the commitment of school leadership to restorative processes.
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- Written by Joshua Wachtel
IIRP President Ted Wachtel writes:
I sent a letter to the editors of the The New York Times responding to its May 29, 2013, editorial about "The School-to-Prison Pipeline."
"I was pleased to see your editorial highlighting the need for schools to change their approach to school discipline, as recommended by the NY City School-Justice Partnership task force, but the discussion is framed in reactive terms, such as a 'graduated response protocol.' Rather, the first step in reducing misbehavior and violence in schools is to proactively build social capital.In the early 1980s, I co-authored Toughlove, to advise parents and other adults dealing with troubled youth, but in the years since there has been more tough than love in our nation's schools. 'Restorative practices' that build relationships and restore community have been implemented at a growing number of schools--achieving dramatic decreases in bullying, misbehavior, crime and violence (see Improving School Climate research outcomes). The task force report does cite 'restorative justice' as an effective response to wrongdoing, but restorative practices work best when they emphasize prevention."
Read the rest.
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- Written by Joshua Wachtel
This video, in Catalan with English subtitles, portrays a project to implement restorative practices across sectors in the Son Gotleu neighborhood of the city of Palma on the island of Majorca, Spain. It's about 20 minutes long, and includes great video of restorative practices at work and testimonials of adults and children.
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- Written by Joshua Wachtel
The following is the opening of an article from the Bangor Daily News by Judy Harrison.
Maine is on the edge of a major reform to its criminal justice system that would replace the current punitive culture with restorative justice principles, an organizer of a daylong conference told participants Tuesday.
Sponsored by the Restorative Justice Institute of Maine based in Augusta, about 100 people, including district attorneys, jail officials, police officers, advocates, volunteers and employees with the Department of Corrections and the Department of Health and Human Services attended. Speakers from California, Vermont, Nova Scotia, Canada, and the United Kingdom addressed the theme of the conference — “Realizing our Vision of a Restorative State.”
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- Written by Joshua Wachtel
During the summer term, IIRP is offering two new courses in a fully online format, "Restorative Justice in Communities" and "Restorative Practices in Life Space Crisis Intervention." Both classes are 600 level classes, however they only require Basic Restorative Practices (RP 500) as a prerequisite.
Assistant professor Dr. Craig Adamson will be teaching RP 622, Restorative Justice in Communities. Craig says that this course looks into what's happening at the local level regarding restorative justice and restorative practices.
The textbook for this course is Dan Van Ness and Karen Heetdersk Stong's Restoring Justice, Fourth Edition: An Introduction to Restorative Justice, a broad overview of the theory and practice of restorative justice. Students also examine the most current research to get a sense of how restorative justice is developing around the world and the current state of practice.
Restorative Works Year in Review 2023 (PDF)
All our donors are acknowledged annually in Restorative Works.