Restorative Practices
When you choose to live in residence, you choose to join a community. This means taking responsibility for your behaviour, participating in meaningful conflict resolution and protecting the rights of community members.
Residence Services uses restorative practices to address harms caused by violations of the Residence Community Standards Policy and House Rules when appropriate. Restorative practices are designed to restore the community and rebuild trust between students living in residence, as both the students who experience and cause harm have a say in the outcome.
The processes also provide a mechanism for students to truly consider their behaviour, its consequences and better options for the future. Those who are harmed learn to voice their needs and participate in the resolution. Those who disrupted the community learn about the impact of their behaviour and work to repair the harm done.
What are restorative practices?
Restorative practices are frameworks for holding people accountable for their behaviour. Instead of focusing on broken rules and punishing behaviour, this process welcomes the perspectives and experiences of everyone involved. The goal is to identify the harm done and take action to make it right.
Restorative practices put the power in the hands of those involved: the harmed parties, responsible parties and affected community members. There is no university authority imposing sanctions in a restorative practice. This means that instead of shaming and isolating an individual by punishing them, restorative practices allow the person who caused the harm to become part of the solution so that everyone can move forward together, in community.
Restorative practices:
- actively build community
- teach conflict resolution skills to everyone involved
- build problem-solving capacity
- provide closure and a way forward
- prevent repeat behaviour from the responsible parties
Restorative practices in residence
Restorative meeting or conference
A facilitated interaction with the aim of identifying and agreeing together on what will be done to repair harm to the community and rebuild trust.
A restorative meeting involves a facilitator, a student who was harmed and a student responsible for the harm
A restorative conference involves a facilitator, those harmed, those who caused the harm, community members and any support people.
Community resolution
A conversation where harms are identified and the problem is solved in the moment.
A community resolution involves a Residence Services staff member and a student (or group of students) responsible for the harm. Sometimes there is no identifiable harmed party.
Restorative principles
Restorative practices use the following principles to engage individuals and the community and facilitate interaction:
- Voluntary involvement for all parties
- Involve those with a legitimate stake in the situation, which may include harmed parties, responsible parties and community members
- Respect all parties
- Provide all parties a chance to share their perspective of the situation
- Participate in decision making
- Value the relationships between individuals
- Provide an opportunity for dialogue, which can be direct or indirect, between responsible parties and harmed parties as desired by all parties (voluntary involvement)
- Focus on the harms (and consequent needs) of harmed parties first of all, but also the needs of the community and those who are causing or who caused harm.
- Aim for mutually agreed upon outcomes that put things right to the extent possible and rebuilding trust lost as a result of the harm
- Promote responsibility, reparation and healing for all parties
Voluntary participation
While Residence Services prefers to address harmful behaviour through restorative practices, participation is 100% voluntary. Other processes are available for addressing behaviour when parties are not interested in a restorative practice.
Reason to participate include:
- Gaining empowerment by having a say in the process and outcome.
- Collaborating with others and building a community that you want to live in.
- Learning a helpful skill that you can use throughout your life.
- Moving on from harm and moving forward in your residence community. If you were harmed, your needs are front and centre. If you caused harm, you have the opportunity to make things right
Be a restorative community member
You are encouraged to address conflicts and resolve resulting issues within your community. There is no need to wait for Residence Services staff to get involved if you’re able to do it together.
A restorative community member:
- Understands that their words and actions affect those around them
- Recognizes when they have caused harm (even if it has to be brought to their attention)
- Apologizes when they have wronged someone
- Works with the community to make it right, or works to rebuild trust
- Learns from their mistakes and works to change their behaviour in the future