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IIRP director of continuing education John Bailie co-hosted an important webinar last week with Michigan State University's Rick Shafer and Washington University in St. Louis’s Molly Pierson. The topic of the webinar was an "Introduction to Restorative Justice" and was targeted to university student conduct administrators. In addition to responsive measures to wrongdoing on campus, time was also devoted to restorative practices for building community in residence halls.

Several dozen administrators from such schools as University of Wisconsin-Madison, Harvard, NYU, Reed College and University of California-Berkeley participated to learn how to bring restorative practices to their campus.

For those who could not participate, ASCA is making the webinar available for purchase in their online store here.

For more information about IIRP's Building Campus Community program, click here.

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In Nova Scotia, two article discuss new policies to support restorative responses in schools throughout the province. Clare Mellor in the Chronicle Herald writes:

[T]he provincial Education and Justice departments announced they are putting together a provincewide framework for schools who want to use a restorative approach to managing conflict between students.

During the next three years, the two departments will share the $500,000 cost of implementing policies and a list of resources and contacts for schools that use the program.

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I missed posting a video yesterday, so I'm making up for it today. This one-minute vid was posted along with an article at Voice Waves titled "Students and teachers find restorative justice more effective." The piece discusses a student who is upset about something happening in class and requests a restorative circle from the school dean. Most of the circles discussed in the article are responsive, but the video below, featuring restorative justice coordinator Robert Howard, seems to be promoting a more proactive use of restorative justice:

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This is big news from the United Kingdom, where national legislation is being considered to allow restorative justice for victims of adult crime. The Restorative Justice Council in UK sent this news flash out in a recent email:

In plans published today, new legislation for restorative justice with adult offenders and their victims will be introduced through an amendment to the Crime and Courts Bill. This is part of the Government’s response to the Punishment and Reform: effective community sentences consultation.

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Here's from a piece by Ben Byrne in UK's The Guardian. In these first few paragraphs he makes a concise case for Restorative Justice for youth offenders:

Every local authority is grappling with the challenge of increasing demand for services at a time of severe financial constraint. To meet this challenge we will need new partnerships and new relationships with our residents to help us solve local problems.

One way to approach this challenge is to put restorative practice at the heart of a local authority's work. Surrey's restorative story started in youth justice and our impressive results mean we have tried to spread the principle across the work of the county council.

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Morning circle session for 9th graders at Plymouth Education Center in DetroitOn Tuesday, Melinda Clynes wrote an article in Model D, "a web-based magazine creating new narratives for Detroit since 2005," titled "City kids: How proactive restorative practices benefit all." Framing the argument for restorative practices in terms of the failures of No Child Left Behind, Clynes writes:

While national education leaders try to repair the wrongs of public education, plotting their post No Child Left Behind moves, here in Detroit, some folks tout that school reform might better begin with developing and nurturing relationships among students, between students and teachers, and between schools and community.

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Educational Leadership has a piece this month by Larry Ferlazzo "Eight Things Skilled Teachers Think, Say, and Do" that rings true on a number of levels.

The list includes:

  • Remember that authoritative beats authoritarian.
  • Believe that everyone can grow.
  • Give positive messages.
  • Apologize (i.e., being willing to admit that as a teacher, you are also human).
  • Be flexible.
  • Set the right climate.

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Brooke Adams of the Salt Lake City Tribune writes:

There are approximately 57 countries that use capital punishment for the most heinous crimes, but only one is a western industrialized nation: The United States.

Capital punishment in the U.S. in the context of state, national and international policies will be the focus of the eighth annual symposium on the death penalty sponsored by Utah Valley University on Thursday. The event will feature such experts as James Acker, a criminal justice professor at State University of New York, Albany, and co-director of the Capital Punishment Research Initiative; Ted Wachtel, founder of the International Institute for Restorative Practices; and Alan Clarke, a UVU professor.

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The Restorative Justice Council in the UK writes: "The UK has opted in to a European Union (EU) Directive establishing the right of victims to safeguards in restorative justice services and recognising the ‘great benefit’ to victims that participation in restorative justice brings. The Restorative Justice Council worked with the European Forum for Restorative Justice to secure changes to the draft Directive, based on the evidence that RJ, delivered well, provides many benefits for victims. The final text of the Directive reflects the benefits of participation in restorative justice and sets out the need for minimum standards to ‘ensure victims have access to safe and competent restorative justice services’."

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This week's Sunday video comes from The National, a program on CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation). This 3 and a 1/2 minute clip shows how talking circles in a Toronto school are being used to confront the issue of bullying head on.

 

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