IIRP Professional Development brings together research, theory, and practice. We offer a growing array of noncredit offerings to teach you the concepts and soft skills needed to stand out in your professional environment. Our experienced instructors are skilled practitioners, adept at helping you learn and implement restorative practices in your setting. Take the first step to gaining the practical skills and knowledge needed to get started today.
Search our wide array of professional development experiences to best suit your needs. Use the filter option to identify your preferred method of delivery and experience level. Our events are available as:
- Public event experiences:
- Open to all learners from various organizations, locations, and fields. Registration and schedules are available here.
- Private event experiences:
- Available for larger groups (>15), led by a dedicated instructor or team of instructors for your specific organization or team.
- Offerings are tailored to your organization's needs and can be scheduled based on your organization’s availability.
Results:
Facilitating Listening Circles
With roots in Indigenous cultures around the world, listening circles provide people an opportunity to speak and listen to each other in an atmosphere of safety, decorum, and equality. Listening circles emphasize storytelling for cultivating empathy, helping people gain a shared sense of understanding and emotional connection. These circles can be used in communities, workplaces, schools, organizations, neighborhoods, universities, and families.
Participants will both experience a listening circle and learn how to facilitate listening circles of their own.
Designed For:
Individuals aspiring to create brave space for a shared sense of understanding within their communities, organizations, schools, neighborhoods, universities, and families.
Intentional Classroom Engagement
Students thrive in a school where they feel welcomed and accepted, fostered by a spirit of shared ownership and responsibility within the classroom. The content of this event is based on the book Advanced Practitioner Series: Intentional Classroom Engagement by IIRP Senior Advisor to the President and Assistant Professor, Craig W. Adamson, Ph. D.. For the best experience possible, we strongly recommend purchasing and reviewing the book prior to this training.
Led by an experienced instructor, you will develop advanced skills and competencies for engaging with students. During each online session, you will explore a different aspect of intentional classroom engagement.
- Session 1 – Building Relationships – Examine areas for improvement in your professional practice and interpersonal influence in order to build relationships and community so that all feel included.
- Session 2 – Self-Reflection – Explore the role of self-reflection in building relationships to advance your practice and identify personal biases as a means to overcoming barriers to change.
- Session 3 – Maintaining Relationships – Cultivate a brave and safe space to foster vulnerability and authenticity, allowing students to genuinely express their identity, thoughts, and feelings.
- Session 4 – Responding to Harm and Reintegration – Explore the meaning and purpose of reintegration by examining ways to address harm and welcome students back into the classroom community.
Designed For:
K-12 teachers, staff, administrators, and restorative practitioners who have had previous training or classroom experience in restorative practices.
Leading With Impact: Motivational Interviewing Skills for Effective Leadership
Motivational Interviewing (MI) is a research-based, collaborative communication method that helps leaders and supervisors drive meaningful change within their teams and organizations. By utilizing MI, leaders develop the skills needed to engage employees in constructive dialogue, fostering an environment where individuals feel empowered to take ownership of their actions and align them with personal and professional objectives. Originally used in addiction treatment, MI has proven highly effective across diverse sectors, including organizational management.
In the workplace, MI is particularly valuable for managing team members who may be uncomfortable with feedback or change. By understanding the “Stages of Change,” leaders can tailor their approach to support employees in recognizing their potential, developing actionable goals, and making sustainable improvements. These skills help cultivate a culture of accountability, growth, and self-motivation within the organization.
Designed For:
Leaders, supervisors, managers, organizational development specialists, and coaches. Those in the workplace who are responsible for guiding teams or individuals through change processes.
Motivational Interviewing: Restorative Dialogue and Interventions for Change
Bring awareness to individuals, enabling them to identify the discrepancy between their current behavior and their future goals. Participants will learn how to positively influence individuals to make meaningful life changes. Motivational Interviewing (MI) is a collaborative, research-based dialogue process that strengthens intrinsic motivation for change in individuals.
MI grew out of addiction treatment, but it has also demonstrated effectiveness in the fields of criminal justice, education, organizational management, and the healthcare industry.
Motivational Interviewing is particularly effective with individuals who are non-compliant and resistant to making changes. Understanding the “Stages of Change” will help practitioners develop strategies to support individuals in identifying and achieving their goals or developing new ones.
Designed For:
Counselors, K-12 teachers, staff, and administrators, members of the criminal justice field, and others.
Putting Theory into Practice for Advanced Circle Facilitators
Sharpen your skills for the facilitation of all circles, including proactive community building circles and responsive circles that address tensions and conflict. This collaborative online professional learning community explores what works, what doesn’t, how and why.
During each live session, participants may ask relevant questions, share their experiences, receive valuable feedback from their instructor and peers, and develop strategies for effective circle facilitation skill development and experience.
Designed For:
Designed for circle facilitators in any field or industry, each session is facilitated by one of our engaging instructors — experienced restorative practitioners who clearly articulate key concepts and field your questions. You will join them in a professional learning community with up to 20 passionate circle facilitators.
Putting Theory into Practice for Independent School Staff and Administrators
Are you invested in creating stronger relationships in your independent school environment through restorative practices? When independent schools integrate restorative practices into their administrative and academic methods, they establish a culture of collaborative leadership that increases voice, agency, and belonging for all community members and provides students with transferrable leadership skills that are crucial to functioning in a diverse world.
This collaborative online professional learning community explores what works, what doesn’t, how, and why.
Designed For:
Designed for independent school administration, staff, teachers, counselors, and board members who aim to build stronger relationships and increase the sense of belonging in their school setting.
Putting Theory into Practice for School Staff and Administrators
This collaborative online professional learning community explores what works, what doesn’t, how and why.
During each live session, participants may ask relevant questions, share their experiences, receive valuable feedback from their instructor and peers, and develop strategies for effective teaching and leadership.
This event is recommended for those wanting to gain the practical experience needed to Become a Restorative Practices Trainer.
Designed For:
K-16 teachers, staff, and administrators who possess a basic understanding of restorative practices by having completed Restorative Practices for Educators and/or Restorative Justice Conferencing. Ideal for individuals who are interested in being trained to deliver the IIRP curriculum in the future.
Putting Theory into Practice: Restorative Justice Conferencing Facilitation
Incidents of conflict, wrongdoing, and harm occur everywhere, every day in schools, workplaces, college campuses, neighborhoods, and families. The restorative justice conference provides a way to engage with those who cause and experience harm, along with the affected community.
Through the professional learning community, participants will improve their facilitation competencies. They will utilize a process of self-reflection as they explore important considerations and context around the conflict being addressed. Participants will define what is needed to be successful in their specific setting as they contemplate the conference process as a responsive tool and its importance in building communities.
Designed For:
Designed for participants who have experience in work that relates to the reparation of harm or have a strong familiarity with restorative conferencing concepts. Sessions are designed for individuals from any profession who commonly deal with conflict in their position. This may include those who work in criminal justice, education, community-based organizations, youth services, and facilitation and intervention in these spaces.
Reimagining Campus Community with Restorative Practices
We recognize that every campus is unique. In-person, off-campus, and virtual academic life is vast and diverse. Encouraging deeper relationships between individuals and promoting social connections within the campus community strengthens equity, belonging, and collective efficacy. This leads to happier, healthier, and more productive campus communities.
In this professional development event, you will learn ways to foster and facilitate engagement and build positive relationships, whatever your sphere of influence on campus. This event is applicable to all members of the higher education community, from Academic Affairs to Student Life, including faculty, staff, and students.
Designed For:
Any and all members of the higher education community.
Restorative Justice Conferencing
Incidents of conflict, wrongdoing, and harm occur everywhere, every day in schools, workplaces, college campuses, neighborhoods, and families. The restorative justice conference provides a way to engage with those who cause and experience harm, along with the related community.
Restorative Justice Conferencing covers the fundamentals of facilitating a formal conference in response to an incident of wrongdoing or harm. You will then be able to utilize those skills to create deeper interpersonal understanding and repair relationships among those involved or affected by such an incident.
Designed For:
K-16 teachers, staff, and administrators, members of the criminal justice field, and other organizations. This experience is applicable to other audiences, but examples used come from school and criminal justice settings.
Restorative Practices for Educators
Building and strengthening relationships and community is a critical component of school culture. Restorative practices is an essential process for creating a positive learning environment, building social capital, and resolving relational issues.
During this two-day introductory experience, you will learn the fundamental theory and practices for engaging with students, staff, and parents in your school setting.
Topics include the importance of being explicit about practice, how to set high expectations while being supportive, and ways to build community in your setting. We will discuss giving direct feedback and asking questions that foster accountability, as well as utilizing effective methods to resolve common conflicts.
You will learn to apply the restorative practices continuum, understanding which restorative processes are best for achieving certain goals or responding to particular situations. We will focus specifically on facilitating circles, an essential process for creating a positive learning environment and school culture. Circles can be used both proactively and responsively to build social capital, sustain relationships, address social problems, and respond when harm occurs.
Participants will spend time planning circles to use in their schools immediately.
Designed For:
K-12 teachers, staff, administrators. This experience is applicable to other audiences, but school-based examples are used.
Restorative Practices for Independent School Educators
When independent schools integrate restorative practices into their administrative and academic methods, they establish a culture of collaborative leadership that increases voice, agency, and belonging for all community members and provides students with transferrable leadership skills that are crucial to functioning in a diverse world.
This learning experience focuses on creating systems that promote equity and inclusion for students and adults. During this two-day introductory event, you will learn fundamental theory and practices for engaging with students, staff, and parents.
Topics include the importance of being explicit about practice, how to set high expectations while being supportive, and ways to build community in your setting. We will discuss giving direct feedback and asking questions that foster accountability, as well as utilizing effective methods to resolve common conflicts.
Participants also learn to facilitate circles, an essential process for creating a positive learning environment and school culture. Circles may be used to build social capital, resolve social tension, and respond when relational or community harm occurs.
Designed For:
PK-12 administrators and staff working in an independent school setting.