Training in Restorative Justice: Enhancing Collaboration with Public School Educators..

Source: (-0001) Relational Child and Youth Care Practice.

In this article I explore the use of training in restorative practices as a means of developing educators’ collaborative abilities. The research in this article is based on the development and implementation of two restorative justice training programs. Both training programs made extensive use of a talking-circle format, which provided the space for both experience and reflection. The effective use of collaboration assumes that individuals are actively engaged in their social environment and are therefore able to assert their needs within that context. It also assumes they can reflect on their actions and are able to co-operate within their social environment In developing my argument I use dialectics, such as assertion and co-operation, to support my conclusions. My study concludes that training in restorative justice will develop and improve educators’ ability to be collaborative. (author’s abstract)