News & Announcements
Image by Trocaire via Wikimedia CommonsAcross Europe, communities are struggling to deal with the consequences of Syrian immigrants arriving, settling and attempting to integrate into society. In the Romanian port town of Brăila, Vidia Negrea, IIRP Europe’s Regional Representative for Eastern Europe and IIRP Trustee, recently ran a restorative circle to begin to address issues that have strained relationships in a local school.
As the pendulum in U.S. schools continues to swing away from punitive discipline policies toward a more holistic approach to improving school climate, a host of presentations at the 23rd IIRP World Conference, Learning in the 21st Century: A Restorative Vision, will explore elements of this development.
Featured speaker Pamela Randall-Garner, Ed.D., Senior Staff Advisor for the Collaborating Districts Initiative of CASEL (Collaborative for Academic Social and Emotional Learning), will focus on several important aspects of these efforts in her presentation, “Building Supportive School Communities,” including social and emotional learning (SEL) for students and staff, equity for students of diverse backgrounds and the role of restorative practices to support those efforts.
Two candidates for the IIRP Graduate School Master of Science in Restorative Practices, Claire Sinclair and Melissa Ash, have been awarded the first Shawn Suzch Scholarship.
Melissa Ash
Claire Sinclair
The IIRP faculty choose the scholarships recipients on the basis of their answers to these questions: How have you demonstrated persistence in the face of adversity? How are you applying what you’re learning to help make the world a better place? and How would a $1,000 scholarship help you in the pursuit of your studies?
Proficiency in giving constructive and effective feedback is a core skill for anyone in a senior leadership position, but what about those times when you need to challenge a superior?
"A world that is smaller and more connected than ever before requires new ways to learn and teach," says IIRP President John W. Bailie, Ph.D. "This conference will explore cutting edge pedagogy, community development and how insights into social and emotional development will change how children and adults learn in the 21st Century."
Tasha Jenkins is dedicated to improving foster care for children. She was an angry young woman after a lifetime in numerous foster homes. Then she arrived at the IIRP model programs, Community Service Foundation and Buxmont Academy (CSF Buxmont), in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and a new world opened up for her.
Over the course of my life, I have been blessed with many excellent teachers and learning experiences. My marriage tops them all. Here are just a few things I’ve learned that have also impacted my relationships at work.
QNB Bank presented a donation of $2,000 to the Buxmont Academy on July 5, 2017.
(l-r) Courtney Covelens, commercial loan officer, QNB Bank; April Donahue, Colmar branch manager, QNB Bank; and Craig Adamson, president, CSF and Buxmont Academy.
Buxmont Academy, a model program of the International Institute for Restorative Practices (IIRP), is dedicated to providing education, counseling, foster care and other services to help at-risk youth and their families in eastern Pennsylvania to grow and change through restorative practices. Buxmont Academy and sister organization Community Service Foundation (CSF) operate 5 school/day programs, an elementary school program and four community-based foster homes, in addition to in-home supervision programs, restorative reporting centers and restorative services for schools.
QNB Bank currently operates eleven branches in Bucks, Montgomery and Lehigh Counties and offers commercial and retail banking in the communities it serves.
In this piece, IIRP Graduate Keisha Martinez ('17), a licensed music therapist and founder of Music Inspiring Change, explores how music therapy combined with restorative practices can help prison inmates and heal trauma.
Special thanks to the European Forum for Restorative Justice (EFRJ) for allowing us to republish this article, which first appeared in their June 2017 Newsletter Volume 18(2). This article will be part of a forthcoming EFRJ publication on the theme of "Arts and RJ." EFRJ welcomes other submissions for this booklet by October 1, 2017.
IIRP Latin America, based in Costa Rica, is helping that country become a model of restorative practices in the areas of education and justice. And with more than 50 licensed restorative practices trainers in Latin America, 
IIRP's Representative for Latin America Claire de Mézerville López (left) with other presenters, including Magistrate Doris Arias Madrigal (second from right), at a recent eventthe organization is also influencing the growth and development of restorative practices throughout the region.
The IIRP’s new Representative for Latin America, Claire de Mézerville López, from San José, Costa Rica, comments, “We come from a very punitive culture here and we need to build peace and repair harm. The natural response of too many people is to be vindictive and to punish when harm was done. On the other hand, the Restorative Justice Program by the Ministry of Justice, headed by Magistrate Madrigal, has been very effective, proving that this is not just theory: it works for everyone involved.”
Restorative Works Year in Review 2024 (PDF)
All our donors are acknowledged annually in Restorative Works.
