Special Education & Restorative Justice

Target Audience: Administrators, School Staff, Teachers

Restorative justice is a philosophy and approach rooted in indigenous traditions for building community and responding to harm. Schools worldwide are extending this tradition and applying restorative principles to manage classrooms and create inclusive, socially connected, and supportive learning environments. We are committed to educating youth regardless of their social, emotional, physical, or intellectual abilities. In fact, students with special needs and trauma make a significant part of our school population and are disproportionately represented in school discipline cases. Even with no formal diagnosis, students have different capacities for sustained attention, social awareness, intellectual cognition, emotional regulation, memory, and expressive and receptive language. This session will help participants identify and accommodate these differences as an essential part of preparing for, keeping, and following up on responsive interventions, such as responsive circles.

All professional development sessions use a trauma-informed approach and teach skills and practices that you can implement immediately. We highly encourage participants to join our weekly coaching sessions for a deeper dive into the challenges of implementation and practice. All Fall 2021 sessions will be held virtually on Zoom.