Source: (2003) Te Ara Whakatika: newsletter of the court-referred restorative justice project. September/October. #18. Downloaded 11 December 2003.
Several schools in New Zealand are using restorative processes promoted by Australian facilitator and trainer Margaret Thorsborne. These processes are described by Stuart Newby, head of guidance at Massey High School, as a paradigm shift for a secondary school. At the time of this article, Massey had been using restorative processes for a year and a half to deal with incidents affecting relationships between students or between students and teachers. Such processes include restorative conferencing and a “restorative thinking room.â€? Staffed full time, this room is used to hold a child requiring removal from a classroom until the child has successfully negotiated, in a guided process, his or her return to the classroom. This article describes experiences at Massey and other schools with restorative processes, as well as the perspectives of staff on the value of this approach.
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