Safer Schools Partnerships (SSP’s) and Restorative Justice in Schools

Source: (2004) South Yorkshire Joint Secretariat, England. Downloaded 17 February 2005.

The main aims of Safer School Partnerships (SSP’s) are :
– To reduce the prevalence of crime and victimisation amongst young
people and to reduce the number of incidents and crimes in schools
and their wider communities
– To provide a safe and secure school community which enhances the
learning environment
– To ensure that young people remain in education, actively learning and
achieving their full potential
– To engage young people, challenge unacceptable behaviour, and help
them develop a respect for themselves and their community. The SSPs currently funded by the Youth Justice Board provide for a Safer
School Partnership team working across a family or cluster of schools. In
addition to the police officer, the model includes a project worker to enable
more specialised work to be undertaken with the pupil and their family/carer,
to facilitate the provision of other mainstream services, provide links to the
Youth Offending Team (YOT), local police and other relevant agencies. They
also include an administrative support post…. The purpose of restorative justice in schools RJiS is to use restorative justice including restorative conferencing and peer mediation to reduce offending,
bullying and victimisation in schools and improve school attendance. RJiS
enables victims to be satisfied and receive reparation and students who
perpetrate harm to understand and take responsibility for putting right the
harm they have caused and making reparation. Promising findings suggest
that RJ can also substantially reduce school exclusions. Projects in
Hammersmith and Fulham have reported that, following 155 restorative
conferences involving 290 students, exclusions, mainly fixed term, have been
avoided in 190 individual cases. (excerpt)