What is the Restorative Action Program?
The Langley Restorative Action Program is a partnership program between Community Justice Initiatives Association (CJI) and the Langley School District and has been supporting Langley school communities since 2000.
Restorative Action is not simply a specific program. Instead, it is a philosophy, a set of principles and values, and ultimately a different way of understanding conflict, harm, and justice. Restorative Action is about shifting away from punishment and using a different way to respond to conflict and harm in our schools, while proactively developing skills for building and maintaining relationships.
What services does the Restorative Action Program offer?
The Restorative Action Program offers a variety of services to elementary, middle, and secondary schools in the Langley School District, including:
Peace Circles
A proactive restorative process whereby a larger group meets together in a circle to speak, listen, enhance relationships, support one another, and participate in exercises designed to foster a sense of community and build skills for navigating conflict.
The Peace Circle program supports students in developing the communication, listening and conflict resolution skills to assist in overcoming social challenges and dealing with conflict in a confident and empathic way. These themes are unpacked through the OWN IT curriculum during weekly classroom Peace Circle sessions, facilitated by CJI staff, teachers, and/or school counsellors.
Restorative Mediation
A responsive restorative process that seeks to bring healing to harm and help those involved in a conflict or harmful incident move forward in a positive way.
The restorative mediation process is a voluntary option for students in grades 3-12 who have experienced conflict or harm at school. A trained facilitator first meets individually with each person involved or impacted to explain the process and better understand their perspective and needs. The facilitator works with each individual to unpack the situation with a restorative lens:
- What happened?
- Who has been impacted and how so?
- What are the needs of those who have been hurt?
- What would meaningful accountability look like?
- What boundaries and/or agreements can we create to move forward in a positive way?
- How can we prevent this type of harm from happening again in the future?
If appropriate and everyone is willing, the facilitator will bring participants together for a dialogue. At this meeting, each person is given an opportunity to speak uninterrupted about their perspective on the issue, discuss how people might have been harmed, take responsibility, ask questions to build understanding, and create agreements for what can be done to make things right moving forward.
After this meeting, facilitators will follow-up with students to debrief, and to support them as needed in carrying out any agreements made. Restorative mediation focuses on encouraging youth to play an active role in working through conflict, while learning important communication skills through the process.
To access restorative mediation services through CJI, please contact zofiaswitkowski@cjibc.org.
Training and Professional Development
Community Justice Initiatives hosts various training opportunities throughout the school year, for both students and staff. To learn more about training opportunities in Restorative Action, please contact mail@cjibc.org.
Helpful links
- Community Justice Initiatives Association: https://cjibc.org/
- Restorative Action Program (Video): https://youtu.be/BtdjjyUj3OQ
- Restorative Justice in BC: https://rjabc.ca/rj-in-bc/