IMPACT Justice Program Reaches Out to Schools

Velma Newton

IMPACT Justice is also targeting other social groups, specifically the education sector where counselors and teachers are trained to resolve conflict between students. Three weeks ago, the IMPACT Justice Project partnered with the Ministry of Education to engage teachers as well as parents on how they can move the process along.

Prof. Velma Newton, Regional Project Director of IMPACT Justice

“Restorative practices is one of the ADR planks and we target educators through restorative practices so we would have worked through the Ministry of Education with that. We trained guidance counselors, principals, deputy principals, ordinary teachers and some teachers because often some of the problems that young people have originate in the homes. And the Ministry of Education is quite enlightened and it is the first ministry that has asked us if we could include parents. And the feedback from my staff is that the sessions went very well indeed and the parents were as involved as the teachers themselves. Those were two-day training sessions so we had four of them and it was a hundred and sixty teachers…the group was about a hundred and sixty in all. And the major principle in terms of restorative practices is that the person who has harmed another acknowledges the harm that is done and then they can resolve how they are going to repair the damage that has been done. So usually it is by the person who has done the harm, makes some sort of concession to the other person. Restorative practices has been practiced in many schools throughout the world and it is working quite well in North America especially and especially in schools where there are issues.”