News & Announcements
Here are two brief excerpts from an article by Sara K. Satullo that appeared last Friday, February 3 in the Easton Express-Times:
Bethlehem Area Social Studies teacher Joanne Widdersheim gathered 10th-graders in a circle Friday.
She tasked them with revisiting a question she posed to them at the start of the semester: Where do you want to be in 30 years?
Students had a few minutes to draft a Time magazine cover with a witty slogan. Widdersheim teased students, pressed them to work faster and knew when to lay off when a shy student needed more time. She also had them laughing hard.
IIRP affiliate Coordinated Educational Resources Group, LLC (Patrice Vossekuil, Executive Director), will be presenting during the University of Wisconsin - Oshkosh 2012 "Opening the School Gates: Engaging the Community in Bullying Awareness and Prevention" Conference.
Vossekuil's breakout session is entitled "Restorative Practices: Building Strong Relationships Among Youth, Families and Communities." The session will look at training educators and youth service providers to prevent and reduce bullying, and empower youth to understand impacts of bullying and repair harm done to others.
According to the article from the Jamaica Observer, Justice Minister Mark Golding said:
As it stands, “our justice system defines and treats crime as an offence against the State and its laws.” This definition, the minister pointed out, was geared at attributing blame and punishing the offender, not solving problems and restoring broken relationships. ...
The Restorative Justice Council is hosting a one-day conference on March 29, 2012 in London on the topic "Making restorative practice accessible to all through meeting individual needs".
The conference notice states:
"Restorative practice has been shown to meet the needs of victims and reduce re-offending in criminal justice; and to improve attendance and reduce exclusions and bullying in schools. Good practice means making sure these processes are open to everyone in our communities. How do we address some of the potential barriers to participation – ensuring through good practice that restorative processes are open to all?
Here a portion of a story yesterday by columnist Robert Koehler at the Chicago Tribune:
"I found myself running down the hall all the time because of fights," Rhonda Richetta told me, speaking of her early days as principal of Baltimore's City Springs School, a K-8 school in a tough inner-city neighborhood. "I would look at kids' faces. Everyone looked angry, like they didn't want to be here -- adults and children both."
In poverty-wracked neighborhoods, this is the American school system. "Education" takes place in a context of anger, violence, intimidation and arrest. The kids are struggling not to learn but "just to survive," as Ted Wachtel, founder and director of the Bethlehem, Pa.-based International Institute for Restorative Practices, put it.
Susan Miller, professor of sociology and criminal justice at the University of Delaware, has received the Outstanding Book Award from the American Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences for her 2011 book, After the Crime: The Power of Restorative Justice Dialogues Between Victims and Violent Offenders.
Martin Wright reviewed the book last summer at Restorative Justice Online writing:
There are some interesting observations about "apology" in this guest post by Ben Furman at Coert Visser's Doing What Works: Forward in Solution-Focused Change blog.
In the US, medical doctors have been advised for years by lawyers not apologize if patients complained about them. An apology, the lawyers used to explain, indicates admission of culpability and acts as invitation for a malpractice lawsuit. Massachusetts was the first State to adopt what is called an apology law in the mid 80s. It is a law that stipulates that an apology made by a medical practitioner to a patient may not be used against the practitioner in the court of law. Apology laws, which give legal permission for doctors to apologise to patients for their mistakes, have since been passed in most States in USA. It has been estimated that such laws have brought huge savings to the medical establishment through reducing the number of malpractice suits, increasing the number of resolved cases and decreasing the amount of moneys paid in compensation.
Here's news from IIRP's sister organization, Buxmont Academy, which has opened its first elementary school, which will operate with the use of restorative practices in a unique partnership with the local school district.
The Buxmont Academy Elementary Program at Pottstown opened its doors January 30, 2012, to provide elementary-school children with essential education and special education services close to home.
Buxmont Academy executive director Craig Adamson expressed appreciation to the Pottstown School District for recognizing Buxmont’s proven-effective methods for helping children, youth and families succeed academically through the use of restorative practices. (Buxmont Academy currently operates five secondary-level schools in eastern Pennsylvania, including one in Pottstown.)
For more information about this project, visit the Building Campus Community web site. Note, too, that there will be webinars on this topic offered on February 23, March 19 and April 3.
Today's offering is, again, a sample from the Building Campus Community book. This passage is from Chapter 4, Proactive Community Circles:
Restorative Works Year in Review 2025 (PDF)
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