Coast Capital Savings supports Community Justice Initiative’s Educating for Peacebuilding program or Restorative Action in Schools for the 2014/15 school year. This grant plays an essential role in changing the culture in Langley schools.
Restorative Action seeks to make safer, more respectful schools and classrooms through the education of staff, students, and parents. It addresses the harm that can result to people and property from conflict situations. Students learn to take responsibility for their actions and are given the opportunity to make right the wrong. This helps them to learn from their mistakes and not to repeat them. Our hope is that schools will eventually have all staff and students trained in Restorative Action values and principles.
Dozens of students have been impacted, particularly those with unique needs, in the Langley School District and will continue to be encouraged as the program progresses.
Some of the goals of the program are to:
- Improve the opportunities for a full education for youth especially youth at-risk;
- Improve the inclusion of youth in positive school and peer communities;
- Identify conflicts at an early stage to prevent escalation;
- Identify underlying issues of conflicts and enhance parental/family member involvement;
- Build self-confidence and a sense of empowerment among students with communication, conflict resolution and mediation skills that will be valuable in preventing and dealing with improper behaviour, and can be applied in the future to other aspects of their lives;
- Encourage and promote the application of Restorative Justice principles to help build the capacities of more schools and school districts toward achieving the above goals.
