What is Restorative Justice?
Restorative Justice is a set of community building and conflict resolution principles and practices that enrich communities, create inclusive spaces, collectively identify and repair harm, and restore relationships.
Restorative processes support people involved in a conflict to talk about what happened, how they were impacted, and collectively decide what can be done to make things as right as possible. Space to heal relationships with meaningful accountability.
Restorative justice originates from an indigenous framework, which is highly relational. We know that when people are in relationship with one another, conflict is less likely to occur. And when conflict does occur, people are more likely to participate in making things right if they care about one another.
Within a school context, restorative justice provides alternatives to punitive and exclusionary disciplinary measures that disproportionately impact students of color.
Image credit: Katy Groves