School-based RP Implementation

Angela Monell and Southwest Guilford High School are committed to restorative practices as a way to keep kids in class and out of trouble.

That predictable, structured place to safely share is critical, especially for students who want to take on society’s bigger challenges, Swearingen said. “It puts us in a spot where we can be vulnerable with each other, and because we can be vulnerable together we can be productive.”

Criminal justice reform advocates are applauding a diversion program created to resolve the hundreds of felony cases that came out of the civil unrest that followed the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020.

Each time we choose to draw near, rather than to send away, we are actively building a new way to be in community together. As we model this way of being in schools, we are shining a light and showing a way for what can be possible in the community as a whole.