Restorative Action: Changing School Culture

Restorative Action is changing the culture in British Columbia schools. In June 2000, a new partnership was born when the Langley School District #35 (SD35) and Fraser Region Community Justice Initiatives Association (CJI) agreed to work together to explore how Restorative Justice principles might be applied throughout the local school system.  The focus on these principles, which we call “Restorative Action” in the school context, encourages responses to harm and discipline issues that are needs-based and promote healing and accountability.  This initiative grew out of the need to create safe schools through an effective, sustainable approach that does not rely on punishment and isolation to deal with discipline issues. The concept was that Restorative Justice based approaches could give frustrated parents and educators alike additional strategies for effectively addressing misbehaviour, the underlying issues responsible for that behaviour, and harm that occurs as a result.

To this end, we offer regular presentations and educational sessions about Restorative Action to raise awareness across the school district. In Secondary Schools, we have developed a curriculum called Conversation Peace for students, parents and staff, which prepares the trainees to be called upon when conflict in the school arises. We have trained students and staff at three secondary schools to date and are pleased to see how conflicts are being handled in these schools. In elementary schools, we have offered Restorative Action training and awareness to the teachers, who then bring the teaching to their classrooms. We also have staff from CJI and the school district prepared to respond restoratively to more serious issues that arise in school environments.    

Through all of this, we are aiming for a systemic effect of changing school culture, but in the day-to-day reality, we are encouraged by individual students, parents and educators who are learning skills and changing their worldview one by one. We have often heard students say they liked our training because they are now more able to listen to their friends and show caring and empathy.  One secondary student remarked, “My friends say I’m listening to them now.  They don’t know what’s happened to me!”  An school teacher stated to us, “I never really took the time to listen before without any personal agenda. I was amazed when the person thanked me for listening and said she had better clarity on how to solve her problem…when I hadn’t told her to do anything!”  Our goal of culture change will take years of consistent hard work.  However, we are encouraged to continue because of individual interactions that reveal how developing a restorative mindset can be life-changing for the individuals and those around them.

More information about the program is available on the Langley School District website or download a copy of the program's brochure.

2004 marked the beginning of CJI's implementation of Restorative Youth Services (RYS) in both Surrey and Langley communities. A combined initiative between CJI and partner agencies Family and Youth Services Society in Langley and Pacific Community Resources in Surrey, RYS consists of three components:

• Restorative Community Service
• Community Capacity Development   
• Mentorship

Training based on the Victim Offender Mediation Program is available.

After more than 20 years, this program has been suspended due to lack of funding. Prior to its termination in July 2004, CJI's Victim-Offender Reconciliation Program was one of the oldest, continuously-operating programs of its kind in North America. While the program is no longer operational, the principles upon which it was based are fundamental to CJI's philosophy and CJI continues to offer training based on the agency's experience.

The idea of victim offender reconciliation had a Canadian genesis. It was the brainchild of Dave Worth and Mark Yantzi, two young Kitchener, Ontario men. The process brings together victims and offenders, and functions to address the facts and feelings in a case from the point of view of each of the principal participants (use this link for information about the VORP process). While there are impressive statistics documenting offenders' completion of the agreements negotiated in these meetings, the primary benefit recorded by both victims and offenders is “the opportunity for the offender to meet the one he or she had wronged” (Gibson, 1986).