Restorative Practice

Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board believes that everyone has the right:

• to be safe
• to feel safe, welcome and included at school, and
• to be treated with respect, dignity and humanity.  

We believe everyone in our school community plays a part in achieving these goals. The use of restorative, culturally responsive, trauma-informed practices is a means of building relationships, strengthening school communities, and maintaining safe, inclusive school cultures.
  
Restorative practice focuses on repairing the impact caused by harmful behaviour while holding individuals accountable for their actions. It provides an opportunity for the parties directly affected – victim, perpetrator and community – to express how they are affected and identify and address their needs that result from the behaviour in question. It seeks a resolution that affords reparation, healing, reintegration, and prevents future harm. Interventions occur along a continuum of restorative practices.
   
Trauma-informed practices increase safety, control and resilience for people in relation to experiences of violence and trauma that have resulted in negative health outcomes and behaviours.

What is Restorative Practice?

Restorative practice is firm and fair, seeking answers to specific questions to identify what happened when things go wrong between individuals, and to build positive responses.   

Benefits of Restorative and Trauma-Informed Practices in Schools

Schools using restorative and trauma-informed practices report a safer learning environment where students are more connected to one another and to staff, and where they are free to focus on improving achievement. KPR schools have used it successfully to prevent or respond early to issues such as bullying or cyberbullying before they reach the problem stage. 

What does Restorative Practice look like in Schools?

In schools, restorative practice may include peer mediation, with older students helping younger ones to solve problems; informal classroom circles, with teachers and students discussing and resolving concerns; and more formal family group conferencing, where students who have caused harm are held accountable for the effects of their actions.  Restorative conferences allow the victim to have a say in how the harm should be repaired and encourage the person who caused the harm to take responsibility and “make it right”.