• To help children and youth remain and achieve in school
• To reduce the number of youth in involved in crime
• To support youth in returning to our community
• Restorative Practice is about creating a community. It is about creating a culture where every voice is heard.
• It is about creating an environment where youth can talk openly and freely about their issues and their concerns, and where adults take those concerns seriously.
• Adults offer their help to coach those involved to take responsibility for their actions and become accountable to fix the harm they caused.

• We build capacity in our youth
• Youth understand the feelings of others
• We turn incidents into “teachable” moments
• We create the capacity to change
• We emphasize learning over punishment and reintegration over exclusion
• The focus is on relationships and harm and how things can be made right again
• The restorative justice approach enhances interpersonal skills and develops empathy in youth
• The model brings together the offender, the victim, their respective support people, staff and community members
• The model holds youth accountable for their actions in meaningful and direct ways
• It addresses the needs of the victim and allows the community to be part of the solution

Transforming Communities
Adjusting Lenses
Restorative Justice is about changing not only attitude but also actions. In order to move away from the punishment model, we need to believe that with the right training, youth can be accountable for their actions. The chart below demonstrates how we need to create this change.

RESTORATIVE PRACTICE/JUSTICE LANGUAGE

SOME THOUGHTS TO GET YOU GOING

* Restorative Practices are meant to HEAL not punish
* Let go of your favourite/comfortable way of thinking
* Do not be prescriptive in the attempt to resolve the issue one is dealing with
* Invite others into the “circle” of building capacity and community in your       classroom/school
* Silence is your friend….get comfortable with sitting in patient, reflective silence
* There is a world of difference between waiting to speak and listening….BECOME A LISTENER.

CREATING CLASSROOM/SCHOOL COMMUNITY

Community is a combination of two elements:

1)  A web of affect-laden relationships among a group of individuals,
relationships that often crisscross and reinforce one another
(rather than one-on-one or chain-like individual relationships)
2) A measure of commitment to a set of shared values, norms, and meanings,
and a shared history and identity - in short to a particular culture

SOME RESTORATIVE JUSTICE SENTENCE STARTERS

I’m glad you came today, how are you?
You look _____, how are you feeling?
How was your night last night?
What’s your brag/drag for today?
Is that a brag or a drag for you?
How did that make your feel?
You feel _____ (feeling word) because_____(reflect back content/reason for the feeling)
Tell me more about that.
Tell me from your perspective what happened.
Thanks for sharing that.
Thanks for offering to do______?
Would you like to facilitate_______?
What is your academic/personal goal for today?
Is it measurable, attainable, and achievable?
What can I (we) do to assist?
Is there anything I (we) can do to help you with that?
What do you need to achieve your goals today?
What was the harm done to you?
What was the harm you did to others?
What can you do to repair the harm?
What can others do to repair the harm?