Restoring Relationships: a Vancouver School’s Approach to Bullying and Conflict

Written by Hannah McGechie on 27/01/10

Photo by frerieke on Flickr

Charlie Chin’s experience in elementary school was miserable. He was teased, called names and bullied. By the time he reached grade 11, he had decided to make it his mission to improve the environment of the school and make it safer. With the Windermere Secondary School’s youth worker, he started an in-school restorative justice program run by students acting as peer mediators.

Restorative justice is a slightly different approach to crime and conflict: instead of focusing on punishment, it looks at who was harmed and how this damage can be repaired. Everyone involved – those who caused the harm, their victims and the affected community – is brought together to explore what happened, why and what can be done to fix it.

At Windermere Secondary School, there are now 20 peer mediators who facilitate the restorative justice process, and they deal with a whole range of issues. From cases of bullying to students stealing a teacher’s wallet, the program has been an overwhelming success. It has helped students see the effects of their actions both on individuals and the wider school community, and the impact is certainly hitting them: some resolutions have brought the involved students to tears.

Those involved – those causing harm, victims, teachers and peer mediators – have noted what a powerful healing process the restorative justice program provides. “If teenagers can do this, everyone else can, can’t they?” says Chanel Ly, one of the peer mediators, while asking why restorative justice processes aren’t more widely used in Canada.

Check out the links at the bottom of this post if you want to know more about restorative justice. If you’re interested in getting involved in restorative justice processes, especially in your school or community, YOUCAN is definitely the place to start with.

Links

Vancouver Sun: Teens Find Better Way of Dealing with Bullying and Vandalism
Restorative Justice Online
Department of Justice: Restorative Justice Factsheet
The Little Book of Restorative Justice by Howard Zehr