Accreditation

Articles and resources on guidelines, certification and accreditation of practitioners.

Review: Walking the talk: Developing ethics frameworks for the practice of restorative justice

by Lynette Parker While restorative justice is a theory that encompasses a set of values for how justice should be done, maintaining those values and the restorative focus can become difficult in day-to-day practice. People working in restorative justice organisations – whether staff or volunteers – make a myriad of decisions related to practices each day. Such decisions may be related to work with clients, work with other organisations or internal processes and interactions. How can they make these decisions while maintaining the integrity of their restorative justice programme? Susan Sharpe seeks to answer this question with Walking the talk: Developing ethics frameworks for the practice of restorative justice. In the 62 page publication, Sharpe sets out a process that organisations and individual practitioners can use to develop an ethics framework to empower and guide decisionmaking. In doing so, she avoids the contentious issue of setting standards by developing the steps in a process that each organisation can use to develop a framework that has direct meaning for it and the various issues that it faces.

Child Justice Act undercut from within

from the article by Don Pinnock in the Mail & Guardian Online: Even before it began the rocky climb through the parliamentary process, the Child Justice Bill was considered to be internationally path-breaking legislation. It was born in the euphoria of the early 1990s in a country where youth had been considered politically lethal, whipping was a sentence, imprisonment the standard response to wrongdoing and torture considered a legitimate interrogation method. The new legislation sought to provide restorative justice by diverting child offenders from this punitive justice system and keeping them out of prisons, which simply hardened criminality. It devised ways to work with offenders and victims to restore harmony in the community where the crime took place. Punishment would be tailored to the crime and dealt in a way that maintained the self-respect of the offender as well as the approval of both community and victim.

Implementing restorative justice: A guide for schools

Recently, the Illinois Criminal Justice Authority released the guide Implementing Restorative Justice: A guide for Schools as part of a series of resources created to help with the statewide implementation of restorative justice for working with young offenders.

Justice group welcome

from Saoirse32: A Unionist councillor has welcomed news that a community restorative justice scheme in Newry and south Armagh has received official government status. The CRJ scheme, based in Mullaghbawn, received government accreditation on Thursday following an inspection by Criminal Justice Inspection NI (CJI). The inspection reported that the UN principles on Restorative Justice were being observed by the organisation and that senior police officers working in Newry and south Armagh indicated that a relationship which held promise for the future is developing.

Accreditation blueprint: Proposal to the Restorative Justice Consortium

 

Do you care about accreditation in restorative practice?

From Restorative Justice Consortium: The Restorative Justice Consortium, in conjunction with the independent consultancy JPA Europe Limited, is undertaking a project to map out a ‘blueprint’ for accreditation in restorative practice.

Wachtel, Joshua and Costello, Bob and Wachtel, Ted. The Restorative Practices Handbook for Teachers, Disciplinarians and Administrators.

The Restorative Practices Handbook is a practical guide for educators interested in implementing restorative practices, an approach that proactively builds positive school communities while dramatically reducing discipline referrals, suspensions and expulsions. The handbook discusses the spectrum of restorative techniques, offers implementation guidelines, explains how and why the processes work, and relates real-world stories of restorative practices in action. (publisher's description)

Bodine, Richard and Crawford, Donna. Conflict Resolution Education: A Guide to Implementing Programs in Schools, Youth-Serving Organizations, and Community and Juvenile Justice Settings; Program Report

The first chapter defines conflict as a natural condition and examines the origins of conflict, responses to conflict, and the outcomes of those responses. It presents the essential principles, foundation abilities, and problemsolving processes of conflict resolution; discusses the elements of a successful conflict resolution program; and introduces four approaches to implementing conflict resolution education. Each of the next four chapters discusses one of these four approaches and presents examples of programs that use the approach. One chapter describes an approach to conflict resolution education characterized by devoting a specific time to teaching the foundation abilities, principles, and one or more of the problemsolving processes of conflict resolution in a separate course or distinct curriculum. Another chapter describes an approach in which selected, trained individuals provide neutral third-party facilitation in conflict resolution. A chapter presents an approach that incorporates conflict resolution education into the core subject areas of the curriculum and into classroom management strategies, and another chapter presents a comprehensive whole-school methodology that builds on the previous approach. The next two chapters address conflict resolution education in settings other than traditional schools, including juvenile justice and community settings. The final three chapters address more overarching topics: conflict resolution research and evaluation; a developmental sequence of behavioral expectations in conflict resolution; and the process of developing, implementing, and sustaining a conflict resolution program. Abstract courtesy of National Criminal Justice Reference Service, www.ncjrs.org.

Reynolds, Carl.. "Workplace mediation."

While there are varying emphases among different people in defining mediation, Reynolds holds mediation to be a process in which a neutral third party assists contending parties to achieve their own resolution of their dispute. In the United Kingdom, mediation has increasingly been extended into the workplace. Relating this development to limitations of traditional grievance and disciplinary procedures, Reynolds summarizes the emergence of mediation in the workplace. He then uses specific examples to show actual schemes for workplace mediation. The chapter also includes recommendations for setting up a workplace mediation system.

Blair, Geoff. Teacher talk, restorative practice, and tricky kids.

This PowerPoint presentation was from a workshop exploring the topic of teacher language. The workshop description was "A practical and theoretical session on the affect of teacher language on the mood of the classroom. The use of circles at the start of the year, semester or topic will set the tone for the class. When teachers and their classes have shared expectations and a clear understanding of how the class will operate it becomes the reference point for when things don’t go well. The primary factor in influencing student achievement is the teacher. When teachers focus on relationships, are concise and consistent with their language, the learning community becomes cohesive and strong. A strong learning community is the greatest gift a teacher/school can provide for kids who struggle and take up so much of student manager’s time."

Blood, Peta and Thorsborne, Margaret. The Challenge of Culture Change: Embedding Restorative Practice in Schools

This paper seeks to broaden the perspectives of senior and middle management and restorative practitioners around what restorative practice in schools can look like; and to present some practical guidelines which represent a strategic approach to the implementation of restorative practices, so that they "stick" -- that is, become sustainable. It represents a work in progress and the authors encourage readers to engage with them in ongoing dialogue about the issues (we don't know all the answers yet!) and share with us their butterfly (successes) and bullfrog (failures) stories, in meeting the challenges of developing a restorative culture within schools (Zehr, 2003). It should be noted that there is an overwhelming body of literature (Hargreaves, 1997, Fullan, 2000 etc) dealing with school reform, effective teaching, classroom and behaviour management practice and that this paper focuses on the implementation of restorative practice in schools. (excerpt)

Thorsborne, Margaret and Moxon, Judith and Armstrong, Margaret. Advancing the restorative agenda into the classroom

Restorative conferencing is no longer new to schools. Increasingly in Australia, New Zealand and in other countries, schools, in an attempt to reverse unhealthy statistics of stand-downs, suspensions and exclusions, have adopted the conference to deal with incidents of serious harm. But education professionals know that most of the "action" occurs in classrooms and that school and class "removal" is better viewed as a process not an event (Skiba et al, 2003). This interactive presentation will briefly explore some models for the successful integration of the restorative philosophy into classroom practice. Divided in to three parts, it will allow participants an insight into current thinking and practice which delivers positive outcomes for teachers, students and their classmates in the wake of wrongdoing. Part 1: School removal and restorative conferencing: This will be a brief overview of the history of restorative conferencing in schools and current research about the risks associated with the overuse of school removal and zero tolerance as disciplinary strategies. Part 2: Restorative Conferencing in Classrooms: This will, using a case study approach, demonstrate the use of classroom conferencing to deal with a variety of difficult classroom dynamics, where young people are made accountable to each other and their teachers, instead of the traditional practice of removing them for referral to deputies, deans or other disciplinarians. This demonstrates the restorative agenda at work in the busiest place in the school - the classroom. Part 3: Responding restoratively to classroom disruption in the moment: This is an exploration of the use of a highly successful restorative adaptation of the Responsible Thinking Programme - a process that may include a student's temporary removal from the classroom. Abstract courtesy of the Centre for Justice and Peace Development, Massey University, http://justpeace.massey.ac.nz.

Training and Accreditation Policy Group. Best Practice Guidance for Restorative Practitioners and their Case Supervisors and Line Managers

The Training and Accreditation Policy Group was set up to advise the United Kingdom government on best practice, training, and accreditation for restorative justice. This document represents the final report of the Group. Based on the Group’s work over a period of time, including the production of an interim report earlier in 2004, this paper sets forth conclusions and recommendations for best practices for restorative justice practitioners. The conclusions and recommendations cover the rationale for training and accreditation, standards for practice, and means for assessing and certifying practitioners. The document also contains an updated suite of tools for guidance for restorative practitioners, their case supervisors, and line managers. It should be noted that the notion of restorative practice in the document refers to work which involves bringing victims/persons harmed, offenders/perpetrators, and others into dialogue with each other to resolve the harm. Hence, the approach and pertinent skills discussed in these pages are focused on victim-offender work.

Youth Justice Board for England and Wales. Good Practice Guidelines for Restorative Work with Victims and Young Offenders

As noted at the beginning of this document, the aims and objectives of the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales (YJB) are grounded in restorative justice. For example, key elements in those aims and objectives include involvement of victims of youth crime in the youth justice process, as well as assistance to victims to help them get over any harm resulting from the offense. The YJB has encouraged a variety of approaches to restorative practices, yet also has decided to set some standards for effective practice. This document, then, provides certain guidelines for good practices. Performance can be measured against these guidelines. The document consists of an introduction to the YJB and the rationale for guidelines; types of restorative practice; principles for restorative practice; steps in restorative processes; and the use of restorative approaches within the Crime and Disorder Act in England and Wales.

Morrison, Brenda. Regulating safe school communities: being responsive and restorative

This paper will introduce a whole-school approach to regulating safe school communities, based on principles of restorative justice. The idea is to move beyond regulatory formalism to a stance of response regulation, whereby the needs of the school community can be better met. The approach will incorporate a continuum of practices across three levels of regulation. The primary level of intervention targets all students, with an aim to develop students' social and emotional competencies, particularly in the area of conflict resolution. This first stage aims to enable students to resolve their differences in caring and respectful ways. The secondary level of practices involves a larger number of participants in the resolution of the conflict or concern, as the problem has become protracted or has involved (and affected) a larger number of people. The tertiary level of intervention involves the participation of an even wider cross-section of the school community, including parents, guardians, social workers, and others who have been affected. This intervention is typically used for serious incidents within the school, such as acts of serious violence. At each level, the processes involved are based on principles of restorative justice, such as inclusive and respectful dialogue. The aim is to build safe school communities through being more responsive and more restorative. Author's abstract.