Skills for the Job: Restorative practice

What is restorative practice?
The aim of restorative practice is to build, maintain and repair relationships. It involves professionals adopting a mindset in which they provide support and challenge to children and young people. When children display disengagement, conflict, and harmful behaviours, these are seen as expressions of unmet needs that can be addressed by restorative means.

Restorative practice holds that all children are responsible for the effects of their behaviours and for helping to decide outcomes to move on and put things right. To be “restorative” is to believe that decisions are best made, and conflicts resolved, by all those directly affected.

Restorative practice is sometimes confused with restorative justice – a much-used term in the news and government policy. Restorative justice is a more reactive discipline. By contrast, restorative practice or restorative approaches, are more proactive concepts that aim to deal with conflict immediately or prevent it before it arises.

What problems can restorative practice help address, and where does it take place?
Restorative practice can be used in any setting, and with any age group. But it should not be viewed as a distinct work stream or intervention. Rather, it is something that can offer an overarching framework and language for consistent multi-agency work and collaboration.

Evidence, both national and international, shows that when a setting adopts restorative practices, there is a shift in mindset, which results in improved outcomes for practitioners and young people alike.

How can I introduce restorative principles to my setting?
There are two ways of dealing with issues when they arise: planned, and unplanned. In terms of planned work, a youth worker or teacher – the “facilitator” – gets the young person to sit down with the person they have a problem with. If appropriate, others who are involved can also be part of the group. The size of the circle depends on the complexity of the problem. Prior to this, the facilitator must do some preparation with those involved to be sure that everyone knows what will happen. The facilitator will then ask a series of questions to all those involved. They follow a regular sequence such as:

• What happened?
• What were you feeling and thinking at the time?
• What have your thoughts been since?
• Who has been affected by what you did?
• In what ways have they been affected?
• What do you think needs to happen next?

The information should then be used to plan a way forward to rectify the situation. With training, the children and young people can lead these meetings themselves. Impromptu meetings can happen without a formal circle and involve the facilitator using the question structure to elicit information about an issue that is worrying a child and look for a way forward that involves the child at the centre of the solution.

What challenges might I face?
You need to be prepared to build and maintain relationships in a positive way and create clear systems to repair harm when relationships break down. It is important that any agency or setting choosing to employ restorative practices uses trainers that are signed up to the Restorative Justice Council’s trainers’ code of practice. It is also worth noting that training is only part of what will help you develop a restorative setting – the key is to incorporate the training as part of a clear implementation plan.

Employing restorative practices can be a challenging cultural change. Previously, settings might have adopted a narrow problem-solving model in which staff perceive themselves, or their services, as the solution. However, that usually means not listening to the needs of children.

By Chris Straker, restorative practice consultant and former head teacher


FIND OUT MORE

• The Restorative Justice Council’s website provides information on trainers and practitioners, and the council’s code of practice
• Independent Academic Research Studies (IARS) is a think-tank with a mission to promote a safer, fairer and more inclusive society