Restorative approaches

What are restorative approaches? 

Restorative approaches (sometimes referred to as restorative practice) is a mindset, providing the foundation to build, maintain and repair relationships. The restorative 'way of being' creates a culture of high challenge and high support and aims to work with people rather than doing things to or for them. Restorative approaches should be used: 

• Proactively to build healthy relationships, prevent behaviours that challenge and conflicts 
• Responsively to address conflict, repair harm and restore relationships  

Relationships are at the heart of restorative approaches, built on mutual respect with individuals taking responsibility for their actions. Restorative approaches focus on the needs of those affected by the harm and involve them in the process of finding solutions.  

• Values and Principles: Restorative approaches are based on values that emphasise healing over punishment, accountability over blame, and community over isolation. 
• Proactive and Responsive: They can be proactive, aiming to build and maintain relationships, or responsive, aiming to repair relationships if harm has occurred. 
• Framework: They provide a framework of values, thinking, and language that is helpful to build and maintain relationships as well as when 'something' needs to be restored, such as effective communication, relationships, empathy, and respect. 
• In Practice: Restorative approaches focus on repairing harm and restoring relationships through inclusive dialogue, mutual understanding, and collaborative problem-solving. This might involve restorative conversations or meetings to address incidents of harm or conflict. These are structured to encourage individuals to understand the impact of their behaviour and work towards repairing any damage done.  
• Outcomes: The goal is to reach outcomes that are mutually agreed upon and that address the needs of all parties involved. This often includes an element of making amends and learning from the experience. 

Why are restorative approaches important? 

Restorative approaches are important for schools and settings to implement because they encourage a culture that focuses on building and maintaining positive relationships, as well as repairing harm when conflicts arise.  

Restorative approaches can support children and young people to: 

• Feel heard and understood whilst avoiding criticism or blame  
• Understand the impact of their behaviours whilst separating their behaviours from who they are as an individual  
• Find ways to repair harm and restore relationships  
• Learn new ways to regulate their emotions  
• Develop empathy and understanding of others' perspectives  
• Develop intrinsic motivation and connect their feelings and thoughts with their behaviours. 

How can restorative approaches be implemented across our schools and settings? 

Implementing restorative approaches involves a shift to practices that focus on repairing harm and restoring relationships. Here are some key steps to effectively implement restorative approaches: 

• Training and Development: It's essential for staff to receive appropriate training to understand and apply restorative principles and practices effectively. 
• Creating a Restorative Culture: Schools and settings need to adopt a consistent framework that emphasises dialogue, negotiation, and problem-solving over punishment. 
• Involving the Community: Restorative approaches require the participation of everyone in the school community, including children and young people, teachers, and families. 
• Proactive Measures: Building and maintaining relationships through proactive restorative practices, such as regular circle time discussions, can prevent conflicts. 
• Responsive Measures: When harm occurs, responsive restorative practices like restorative conversations or meetings are used to address the incident and involve those affected in the resolution process. 
• Policy Alignment: Policies should align with restorative values, ensuring a consistent understanding and application across all staff. 
• Focus on Needs: Restorative approaches look beyond behaviours to understand and address any possible unmet needs that may lead to behaviours that challenge or harm. 
• Encouraging Personal Responsibility: By recognising that children and young people can be involved in finding their own solutions, restorative practices promote accountability and personal responsibility. 
• Repair and Reparation: The goal is to reach outcomes that include making amends and learning from the experience, therefore repairing relationships and preventing future harm. 

What could this look like in practice with individual children and young people? 

There are a range of activities which hold the common outcomes of maintaining positive relationships, reflection, repairing harm and restoring relationships: 

• Morning Circles: Start the day with a circle where children and young people share feelings, set intentions, and build connections. This promotes a positive atmosphere. 
• Check-Ins: Regularly check in with children and young people individually. Ask how they're feeling, listen actively, and address any concerns. 
• Social stories can help a child or young person to see the perspective of others, to develop empathy, to limit anxiety and to address specific behaviours. Some children and young people will benefit from these stories being built regularly into their daily provision. 
• You can use role play or puppets to re-enact challenging situations and help a child or young person to reflect on their actions and consider how they can make things better. 
• Solutions Focused approaches are great at providing a framework for children or young people to set goals on how they will move forward with their behaviours and choices.  
• Completing a Roots and Fruits with the child or young person can be a powerful tool in helping them connect their actions with their feelings and thoughts. Find out further information within this Roots and Fruits One Minute Guide.  

• Restorative conversations use key questions to support a child or young person to reflect and repair harm. Here is a framework of questions that can be used to structure a restorative conversation. The questions can be adapted to use words that the child or young person will understand: 

1) What happened? This is a chance for the child or young person to feel understood and heard.  

2) How were you feeling? This helps to raise self-awareness and lets the child or young person know that it is okay to have uncomfortable feelings.  

3) What were you thinking? This question helps the child or young person to express their perspective. 

4) Who has been impacted? How do you think they might be feeling? This question focuses on impact, not blame and helps to develop empathy towards others.  

5) How can we make things better? This question promotes responsibility for behaviours. 

6) What will you do differently next time? What would help you? This supports the child or young person to identify strategies to help them behave in more positive ways. 

Can restorative approaches be adapted? 

Here are some ideas for how to address barriers to individual children or young people engaging with responsive restorative approaches: 

• Using visual resources may help children or young people to process written or verbal information more effectively: 
• An 'affect circle' can help a child or young person understand who has been affected by a situation and to what extent.   
• 'Fix It' Boards can help children or young people to reflect on how their behaviours might have impacted others and how they can repair the harm caused.  
• Puppets or books can also be used for an age and stage appropriate approach. Some children or young people may feel too uncomfortable or threatened talking directly about their own behaviour so puppets provide a less intense way to do this. 
• Timelines or flow charts can be helpful for children or young people who may find it difficult to recall events.  
• Provide longer processing time between questions or provide a further opportunity to reflect - give the child or young person an 'IOU' card to pick up the conversation at another time 

What support is available? 

National 

Anti-Bullying Alliance: The Anti-Bullying Alliance provide lots of useful information about restorative approaches including videos about how to implement a whole school approach to restorative approaches and links to further information.  

Norfolk  

NCC's Restorative Approaches Team is able to develop and offer bespoke training to further develop the knowledge, understanding and use of restorative practices in Norfolk schools and settings. The course details including current training dates and venues (when available) are accessible through the Norfolk Safeguarding Children Partnership's (NSCP) training website. 

Key contacts   

If you would like any further support, please call 0333 313 7165 to get in touch with one of our advisers. This phone line is open on weekdays, from 9am to 5pm. You can also email inclusionandsend@norfolk.gov.uk if you are unable to call.

If your query relates to training, please email sendandinclusiontraining@norfolk.gov.uk