Structured support and accountability: Community Service Foundation’s Restorative Reporting Centers.

Source: (2011) Restorative Practices E-Forum. 11 October.

Kevin Finnigan is the youngest of his siblings, and as his mother Mary puts it, “fell in with the wrong crowd.” After multiple interactions with the Bucks County (Pennsylvania, USA) Juvenile Probation Office, Kevin was facing residential placement for repeated non-violent probation violations. In most communities, this would require Kevin to leave his family and school for the duration of his placement. When that placement ended, he would then have to deal with the upheaval of reintegration into his home community. Instead, Kevin was referred to a groundbreaking new program, the Community Service Foundation (CSF) Restorative Reporting Center (RRC), a model program of the International Institute for Restorative Practices (IIRP) Graduate School.

CSF, which has operated a network of schools and other programs for at-risk youth since 1977, developed the RRC program so that young people like Kevin can stay home with their families and attend their home schools for the duration of their placements. Other programs, known as evening reporting centers, also allow adjudicated youth to remain home with their families. What’s different about the RRC program is that it immerses young people in an intensive environment of restorative practices. (excerpt)