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A curated list of free resources related to Restorative Practices, Conflict Transformation and Nonviolent Communication.

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Education (k-12 + Higher ed)

Whole-school Restorative Practices Implementation
Whole-school Restorative Practices Implementation

New Directions in Whole School Restorative Justice Implementation

Published in 2018 in the Conflict Resolution Quarterly by Thalia Gonzalez, Heather Sattler, and Annalise Buth, this paper explores a multi-year case study of whole school restorative practices implementation at a small urban high school.

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Whole-school Restorative Practices Implementation

Restorative Communication Resource Binder: Using Restorative Practices to Build Relationship and Repair Harm

This Restorative Practices Resource binder, compiled by True Nature Teaching, is a curated set of Restorative Practices resources found online. True Nature Teaching requests that these resourcves not be reproduced for any larger audience without the express permission of the sources listed. Please support the hard work of the different organizations represented here when you are able.

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Whole-school Restorative Practices Implementation

12 Indicators of Restorative Practices Implementation: A Checklist for Administrators

This resource, created by Anne Gregory, PhD from Rutgers University, was developed for administrators and their teams. The aim is to help teams understand the scope of implementation supports and to consider RP, SEL, and Equity initiatives in tandem.

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Whole-school Restorative Practices Implementation

NACRJ Policy Statement on Restorative Practices in K-12 Education

The National Association for Community and Restorative Justice (NACRJ) produced this policy statement to provide guidance on policies and procedures for the implementation of whole school restorative practices in K-12 education.

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Whole-school Restorative Practices Implementation

The Starts and Stumbles of Restorative Justice in Education: Where Do We Go From Here?

This research paper, published by Anne Gregory and Kathy Evans in 2020 for the National Education Policy Center, explores research, evidence and implementation recommendations for whole school Restorative Practices implementation.

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Whole-school Restorative Practices Implementation

Toward Fundamentally Transforming School Culture with an Accent on Communication, Self-Reflection and Accountability: Using Restorative Theory, Practices and Structures Throughout Your Building to Effect School Wide Cultural Change

This paper, written by Matthew Guldin in 2015 from Cross Cultural Consulting Services, is a guide that can be used to help any school move away from a Zero Tolerance (ZT) approach regarding discipline toward a restorative approach to handling behavioral issues. It can also help a school transition away from a hierarchical structure of school governance toward a more collaborative model for the running of the school on a day to day basis.

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Whole-school Restorative Practices Implementation

School Climate and Culture: Proactive and Responsive Approaches

This guide, produced by Kerri Berkowitz in 2019, explores structures, systems and approaches for a positive school climate and culture

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Implementation Guides
Research and Evidence Base

Restorative Justice: A Working Guide for our Schools

A 2011 Publication of the Alameda County School Health Services Coalition

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Implementation Guides
Research and Evidence Base

Restorative Justice Implementation Guide: A Whole School Approach

This guide is published by the Oakland Unified School District and is designed for a Restorative Practices Facilitator to support their school to create an implementation plan to introduce restorative practices to a school, school wide.

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Implementation Guides
Research and Evidence Base

Restorative Practices: Fostering Healthy Relationships & Promoting Positive Discipline in Schools

Published in 2014 by the Schott Foundation, this is a guide for educators for implementing restorative practices schoolwide as well as in the classroom.

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Implementation Guides
Research and Evidence Base

Restorative Practices Whole School Implementation Guide

Published by the San Francisco Unified School District for the whole school implementation of Restorative Practices.

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Implementation Guides
Research and Evidence Base

Taking Restorative Practices School-wide: Insights from Three Schools in Denver

Published in 2016 by Yolanda Anyon, MSW, Ph.D. and the Denver School-based Restorative Practices Partnership, this report identifies four essential strategies for taking this approach school-wide: strong principal vision and commitment to RP; explicit efforts to generate staff buy-in to this conflict resolution approach; continuous and intensive professional development opportunities; and, the allocation of school funds for a full-time coordinator of RP at the site. Additional approaches that supported school-wide implementation of RP are described in the full report.

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Circle Resources
Research and Evidence Base

Teaching Restorative Practices with Classroom Circles

Developed by Amos Clifford from the Center for Restorative Process for San Francisco Unified School District, this guide presents extensive background and preparation materials, as well as 7 classroom Circle lessons for teaching Restorative Practices.

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Circle Resources
Research and Evidence Base

180 Circle Questions

Elaine Shpungin, PhD of Conflict180.com created these Circle prompts, as she says, "to get to know each other, build trust and community, or save a terrible day from the jaws of darkness - break out these questions and connect."

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Circle Resources
Research and Evidence Base

Restorative Communities Resource Guide

This resource guide, created by The Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, contains tools for Restorative Practices, Circle and cooperative activities for students and adults.

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Circle Resources
Research and Evidence Base

The Circle Process: A Path for Restorative Dialogue

Published in 2005 by Jean Greenwood from the Center for Restorative Justice and Peacemaking at the University of Minnesota, this paper is an overview of the Circle Process and a technical guide to Circle implementation

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Circle Resources
Research and Evidence Base

Circle Keeper's Handbook

A guide for curating a successful, safe circle.

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Equity and Restorative Practices

Let's Talk

A guide, created by Learning for Justice (formerly Teaching Tolerance) for supporting critical conversations among students.

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School-to-Prison Pipeline

Test, Punish and Push Out: How Zero Tolerance and High Stakes Testing Funnel Youth into the School-to-Prison Pipeline

Produced by the Advancement Project in 2010, this is an in-depth study of the policies, procuedres and factors that lead to youth, and particularly youth of color, being pushed out of school and into the school-to-prison pipeline

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School-to-Prison Pipeline

Dignity, Disparity and Desistance: Effective Restorative Justice Strategies to Plug the School-to-Prison Pipeline

This paper, written by Mara Schiff, PhD from the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Florida Atlanta University, reviews current research on zero tolerance, evidence for the effectiveness of restorative justice in schools as an alternative to punitive disciplinary policies, and local and national policy efforts to increase use of restorative practices in schools.

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School-to-Prison Pipeline

Keeping Kids in Schools: Restorative Justice, Punitive Discipline, and the School to Prison Pipeline

written by Thalia Gonzalez, PhD in 2012 for the Journal of Law and Education, this paper explores the possibilities of Restorative Practices as a mechanism to help reverse the trends of Zero Toperance Discipline Policies.

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School-to-Prison Pipeline

Out of School & Off Track: The Overuse of Suspensions in American Middle and High Schools

Published in 2013 by Daniel J. Losen and Tia Elena Martinez and the Center for Civil Rights Remedies, this paper explores the devastating impact of a reliance on suspensions, particularly for students of color.

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Research and Evidence Base

From Retributive to Restorative: An Alternative Approach to Justice

Published in September, 2023, This study examines Chicago Public Schools' adoption of RP. We identify decreased suspensions, improved school climate, and find no evidence of increased classroom disruption. We estimate a 19% decrease in arrests, including for violent offenses, with reduced arrests outside of school, providing evidence that RP substantively changed behavior.

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Research and Evidence Base

The Promise of Restorative Practices to Transform Teacher-Student Relationships and Achieve Equity in School Discipline

Published in the Journal of Educational and Psychological Consultation in 2013, this article focuses on student experience with restorative practices in schools and classrooms.

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Research and Evidence Base

Addressing the Racial Discipline Gap through Restorative Practices

Daniel Malec, GCC Executive Director, highlights evidence related to the effectiveness of Restorative Practices for addressing the Racial Discipline Gap

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Research and Evidence Base

Restorative Justice in Oakland Schools: Implementation and Impacts

Published in 2014 after nearly a decade of implementation in Oakland schools, this is a comprehensive report about Restorative Justice implementation and impacts in the Oakland Unified School District to date.

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Research and Evidence Base

A Cluster-Randomized Trial of Restorative Practices: An Illustration to Spur High-Quality Research and Evaluation

Published in the Journal of Educational and Psychological Consultation in 2016, this article describes the first randomized control trial of restorative practices to date, the Study of Restorative Practices. It is a 5-year, cluster-randomized controlled trial (RCT) of theRestorative Practices Intervention (RPI) in 14 middle schools in Maine to assess whether RPI affects both positive developmental outcomes and problem behaviors and whether the effects persist during the transition from middle to high school.

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Research and Evidence Base

We Cannot Return to “Normal”: A Post-COVID Call for a Systems Approach to Implementing Restorative Justice in Education (RJE)

Martha Brown, PhD, author of Creating Restorative Schools, published this artile in the journal Laws in 2021, as she states "Given the collective trauma caused by COVID-19 global pandemic, it is more important than ever that schools look for ways to create safe, trauma sensitive, and restorative learning environments.

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Research and Evidence Base

Can Restorative Practices Improve School Climate and Curb Suspensions? An Evaluation of the Impact of Restorative Practices in a Mid-Sized Urban School District

Published by Rand Corporation in 2018, this study This study of the implementation of restorative practices in the Pittsburgh Public Schools district (PPS) in school years 2015–16 and 2016–17 represents one of the first randomized controlled trials of the effects of restorative practices on classroom and school climates and suspension rates. The authors examined a specific restorative practices program — the International Institute for Restorative Practices' SaferSanerSchools™ Whole-School Change program — implemented in a selected group of PPS schools under a program called Pursuing Equitable and Restorative Communities, or PERC. The researchers found that PERC achieved several positive effects, including an improvement in overall school climates (as rated by teachers), a reduction in overall suspension rates, and a reduction in the disparities in suspension rates between African American and white students and between low- and higher-income students.

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Research and Evidence Base

Evaluation of a Whole-School Change Intervention: Findings from a Two-Year Cluster-Randomized Trial of the Restorative Practices Intervention

Published in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence in 2019, this study fills a gap in research on multi-level school-based approaches to promoting positive youth development and reducing bullying, in particular cyberbullying, among middle school youth. The study evaluates the Restorative Practices Intervention, a novel whole-school intervention designed to build a supportive environment through the use of 11 restorative practices (e.g., communication approaches that aim to build stronger bonds among leadership, staff, and students such as using “I” statements, encouraging students to express their feelings) that had only quasi-experimental evidence prior to this study.

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Research and Evidence Base

Restorative Justice in U.S. Schools: An Updated Research Review

This research review was published in 2019 and is part of a larger effort of the WestEd Justice & Prevention Research Center (JPRC) focusing on restorative justice (RJ) as an alternative to traditional responses to student misbehavior in schools across the United States. This project was funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to document the current breadth of evidence on the subject, provide a more comprehensive picture of how RJ practices are implemented in schools, and lay the groundwork for future research, implementation, and policy.

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Trauma-informed Practice

Safe, Healthy and Ready to Learn: Policy Recommendations to Ensure Children Thrive inSupportive Communities Free from Violence and Trauma

Published in 2015, Futures Without Violence (FUTURES), with the support of the California Endowment, Blue Shield of California Foundation, and the Lisa and John Pritzker Family Fund, wiorked with leaders throughout the health, education, justice, and child development fields to develop the most advanced public policy solutions to the challenge of childhood exposure to violence and the effects of trauma. This report serves as an important component of a larger national campaign to address childhood exposure to violence and trauma and to invest in the safety, health, and educational success of all children.

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Trauma-informed Practice

Teaching With Strengths in Trauma-Affected Students: A New Approach to Healing and Growth in the Classroom

Published in 2015 by the American Orthopsychiatric Association, this article explores strengths-based approached for building a trauma-informed and trauma-sensitive teaching and learning environment.

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Early Childhood Resources

Resources coming soon, check back later.

From Punish and Discipline to Repair and Restore

Written by Erica Lawrence and Tracy Hinds in 2016 for the publication Principal, this article explore the transition to Restorative Practices in Elementary Education.

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