Office of School Culture

Meet The Team

Dean of School Culture

Leigh-Ellen Figueroa-Starr
413.552.1580 x219
lfigueroa@pvpa.org

Restorative Practices

Restorative practice is a collection of guiding principles, frameworks and structures that provide opportunities to proactively build healthy and supportive relationships between members in a community, reduce unwanted behaviors and encourage healthy behaviors, and resolve conflict, repair harm and restore relationships.

PVPA’s Restorative Practice GUIDING PRINCIPLES

1. Community Building:

Relationships and community help people be more creative, happy and engaged. When people have relationships they are more likely to have understanding and react less severely when conflict arises.

2. Harm and Impact:

RP focuses on harm and relationships rather than rules and laws. When we understand what people feel and identify what they need, it can lead to genuine conflict resolution and harm repair.

3. Support and Accountability:

RP provides support to meet expectations and holds people accountable to those expectations. Support and accountability keeps our community safe and predictable

4. Engagement & Empowerment:

RP makes space for all voices to be heard. Those involved in conflict or harm are involved in the peacemaking process and resolution.

5. Trauma Sensitive/ Informed:

RP focuses on relationships, feelings, needs, choice and empowering those involved to be agents. Circle process is predictable, inclusive, and creates safe containers for difficult conversations

6. Developmental Rights:

All children deserve positive childhood environments, where they can learn and develop social-emotional skills. Mistakes can be learning opportunities and guide future choices.

adapted from McLaughlin and Motel 2016

PVPA’s Restorative Practice FRAMEWORKS

PVPA uses three frameworks to hold Restorative Practice. Each framework uses a multi-tiered system of support to serve the needs of all students.

	School-Wide Positive Behavior Support (SWPBS)	Trauma-Sensitive Schools (TSS)	Restorative Justice Response (RJR)
Tier 1: Whole community	All students taught behavior expectations All staff understand expectations and reward positive behavior	All staff understand the effects of trauma and needed supports All students have access to mental health supports Students learn and practice social-emotional skills	All students and staff use community building circles to learn circle process All students and staff practice communication and conflict resolution skills
Tier 2: Approximately 10-15% of students who need additional support	Behavior expectations retaught and reinforced Families included as partners in reinforcing expected behaviors	Support from Mental Health Team Support from the Office of School Culture Families included as partners in providing support	Class circles to address whole-class issues Teachers use restorative dialogues to work through adult-student conflict ROOTS Peer Restorative Justice used to resolve low-level peer-peer conflict Opportunities provided to make amends and heal harm
Tier 3: Approximately 5% of students with the highest need for support	Individual behavior plans Daily behavioral goal check-in Weekly-daily communication with families	Individual plans developed	Restorative circles and conferences to address serious matters Traditional discipline and restorative justice used in partnership

PVPA’s Restorative Practice STRUCTURES

The structures are the institutional format for providing Tier 1 supports. Structures include teams, times, spaces and systems

School-Wide Positive Behavior Support (SWPBS)	Social-Emotional Learning	Office of School Culture	Academic and Emotional Supports
PVPA C.A.R.E.S. matrices and curriculum SWPBS Data Team	Middle School Wellness Block: LifeSkills and Community Conversations Middle School Advisory	Emotion regulation space Conflict resolution space Restorative Justice Team ROOTS Peer Facilitation	Mental Health Team Student Study Team