Restorative Practice

Restorative Practice has two purposes - building community and responding to challenging situations. It began here in Australia as Restorative Justice and has developed over the last three decades or more. Current best practice draws on experience and evidence from across cultures and all over the world.

​Restorative Practice generally asks three questions:
  1. What has happened?
  2. What is important about this?
  3. What needs to happen next?
Answering these questions can create a very useful conversation. 

Circle talk
Restorative practice is done by bringing together people who are involved or connected to a situation or community. Each person shares their point of view if they choose to. This allows everyone to gain a shared understanding and to feel that they are seen, heard, and respected. Sometimes it is enough to have talked and to see things more clearly. Sometimes people will agree on outcomes or next steps.

Guidelines
Restorative Practice is about relationships, so it is important that everyone can feel safe, be open and honest and be treated with respect. 
  1. Speak from the heart: This means speaking for yourself, talking about what is true for you based on your own experiences.
  2. Listen from the heart: Sometimes without even knowing anything about another person we will make assumptions about them. These assumptions can keep us from really hearing what they have to say… and what they have to say may be something that is important and helpful.
  3. No need to rehearse: In circles we discover that we can trust that we will know what to say when it is our turn to speak. When we find that we are rehearsing (everyone does) we gently remind ourselves “no need to rehearse” and bring our attention back to the person who is speaking.
  4. Without feeling rushed, say just enough: Keep in mind the limits of time and making room for everyone to speak. It is related to “speak from the heart” because we often find that when we speak carefully we can express ourselves with fewer words than we would normally use, and that when we do our words often have more impact.  One way to think about this is, when you are considering what to say, ask, “Does it serve this circle in a good way?”