Corner CAFE CoP #2: Fostering Positive, Respectful, and Empathetic Relationships

Nikevia Thomas:

Thank you for joining us at the Corner CAFE, a community of practice for Maryland and Pennsylvania. We’re delighted to have you here. So, we’re going to get started. So, we’re going to start right away with getting to know everybody and we’d like you to do two things. First, type in the chat your name, your state, and the role that you serve. And then to access our Padlet, we’d like for you to type in two things, what’s your favorite drink to order at a cafe? And then, share a restorative practice scenario that you would like guidance on. The Padlet password, mochalatte, all one word. I’ll give you a couple seconds to access that while I attend to an opinionated beagle. One second please.

Jessica Grotevant-Webster:

All right. Also, it looks like we have some individuals from Ohio, Virginia joining us, welcome, Maryland, Baltimore City Schools, Ohio. Texas.

Brandi Taylor:

Wow.

Jessica Grotevant-Webster:

Good morning. It’s a little earlier for you there.

Nikevia Thomas:

Oh, two from Georgia, wow. So I would like to, oops, did I move that? I think I did. Let me go back. I would like to see the Padlet… Hold on one second. Let me share the Padlet, so that we can see if anybody’s posted any drinks or questions. One second, let me share again. Here we go, what’s your favorite drink? Espresso, cappuccino, a flat white with almond milk. Wow, nice, so you all have access to the Padlet now and you see how it works. If you have a restorative practice scenario you’d like to show, you can come to this column and select add post to this section and you can type in a question or scenario and Jessica and I will be monitoring the Padlet. Let’s continue.

So, that’s a nice transition into meeting your facilitators for the day. I’m Nikevia Thomas. I’m a senior specialist at MAEC and I work on the CAFE team along with my colleague Jessica Webster, who is a senior family engagement specialist for the CAFE team. And so we are a part of MAEC, CAFE is a part of MAEC and we are a champion of innovation, collaboration, and equity. So, our agenda for our second community of practice would be a welcome and introduction. We’re already in that, and then an overview of practices with our presenters for the day. We’ll have time for questions and then they’ll be closing.

So to get us started, we’ll go over a little Zoom etiquette. So, we ask you to use the chat box to engage with other participants and then we recommend that you click on the chat icon at the bottom or top toolbar of your screen. We are not using the raised hand function in our meeting today, and there will be question and answer throughout the community of practice. And so, please share your questions in the chat and in the what I wonder a section of our Padlet. And remember, if you have a scenario or something specific to restorative practices, please remember to use the restorative practices column.

So, we have information on enabling and disabling live captions. Live captions should show on your screen by default. To turn them off, you would use the webinar toolbar at the bottom of your Zoom window to select the live chat transcript or close caption button, select high subtitles to view them again. Repeat step two and select show subtitles instead. So, I would like to talk to you a little bit about who MAEC is to give you some background of who we are. So, MAEC was founded in 1992 as an education non-profit dedicated to increasing access to high quality education for culturally diverse, linguistically, and economically diverse learners. MAEC envisions a day when all students have equitable opportunities to learn and achieve at high levels, and our mission is to promote excellence and equity in education to achieve social justice.

So, who we are as CAFE, so CAFE is the Collaborative Action for Family Engagement and it is a project of MAEC and we are a statewide family engagement center for Maryland and Pennsylvania. We are the only statewide family engagement center that works with two states. We help build sustainable infrastructure to support healthy family, student, and community engagement. CAFE serves all educators from state agencies to school districts to school staff and early childcare providers and families to promote high impact, culturally responsive family engagement.

And so, we can talk just a little bit about what our purpose is for our community of practice. Let me let someone in, hold on one second. So, the purpose of the CAFE Corner community of practice is to create cross-state collaboration, using this as a networking opportunity to share resources and strategies. This is a community of practice that has been developed for practitioners by practitioners. The planning team is comprised of practitioners across Maryland and Pennsylvania, and the emphasis is on systemic, integrated and comprehensive family engagement priorities that are from the Maryland State Department of Education and Pennsylvania Department of Education with a focus on equity and inclusion. And, now I will pass it to Jessica.

Jessica Grotevant-Webster:

Thank you, Nikevia. I am so honored today to introduce to you our topic, both our topic, which I have a huge passion for and our presenters. So, today we are so lucky to have Brandi Taylor and Nichole Sims with us. Next slide, please. So, I’ll begin by sharing that I was introduced to Brandi first when I was an assistant principal for a middle school and we received some grant funding to do some work around school climate and culture. And A Plus schools, which we’ll talk about in a moment, was generous enough to share their wonderful restorative practice expert with us and trainer, Brandi. And Brandi came out, she worked with students in grades five through eight and also with teachers, and through that work she introduced us to Nichole, who also came out and facilitated the trainings with her. Since that time, Brandi has done work with me and for me and my colleagues in numerous opportunities.

And so, I think that you will find the wealth of information that Brandi and Nichole bring both as restorative practitioners and as parents to be a wonderful and rich opportunity. So, we’re very excited to have them. In 2018, Brandi founded Solace Consulting and it is a Pittsburgh-based firm that’s dedicated to providing top-notch restorative practice training, consultation, and restorative parent programming with the preface of trauma and adversity. Her presentations emphasize the need for a cultural shift that embraces the restorative mindset.

Nichole works for A Plus schools as a parent leader and for those of you that are unfamiliar, A Plus Schools is a force to be reckoned with in the Pittsburgh area. Their mission is to make sure every child in Pittsburgh, especially our Black and brown children get a high quality education that they deserve. They’re deeply committed to putting in the work needed to achieve this mission by tapping into the expertise of the communities, families, students, and educators in an unprecedented search for breakthroughs. You can find information, we’ll put both websites and resources in the chat and we also linked them into the Padlet for you, but both are wonderful resources for you moving forward as well. So without further ado, I’m going to thank Brandi and Nichole for joining us today and turn the presentation over, so you can learn from them.

Brandi Taylor:

Thank you, Jess. I’m waiting for… I’m sorry, I want to apologize in advance. I am having camera issues that I thought was resolved, so every now and again my camera will begin to jump and I’ll just turn it off and turn it back on, reset it. So, thank you all, for everyone for joining. This is a pretty large audience. I’m really excited about it. Again, I’m Brandi Taylor and I am the founder of Solace Consulting, and today we’ll be going through a few slides that will introduce you to the four main tools of restorative practices and why I feel they are very necessary, especially in family engagement. I normally incorporate a trauma piece with this as well and typically it was called Understanding the Effects of Trauma and the Importance of Restorative Practices. So, I’ll touch on trauma just a little bit, but this will definitely be focused on the restorative practice tool in the focus in family engagement.

Next slide, please. I’m sorry, here’s the introduction piece. Jess did a really good job at explaining exactly what it is that I do, restorative practice training. I also am very committed to doing and training parents, which is considered restorative parenting. It’s about 10 to 12 sessions and it incorporates these very tools of restorative practices. Sorry about that, and Nichole is one of the first people that I trained within the first training that was small group of people and I’ve been dragging Nichole along ever since. She says she’s great with this and she’s also used these tools herself with her children just as I have as well. So before I move on, Nic, is there anything that you want to say?

Nichole Sims:

Nope, just thank you for having me here this morning. I am hopeful and actually already know that everyone will find this information that Brandi’s going to share very helpful in their professional and personal lives. So, that’s all I have to share. Thank you.

Brandi Taylor:

Thank you, Nichole.

Nichole Sims:

Sure.

Brandi Taylor:

So, we’re going to go ahead and jump right in. Next slide, please. So today’s purpose, really short and simple, by the time we finish these few slides, I’m hoping that everyone understands the working tools of restorative practices. They focus on building relationships and restoring relationships. The other goal by the end is that you’ll be able to apply these tools and encourage the use of restorative practices whenever you’re working with your families, whenever you’re with your co-workers, your collaborative partners, and just the community at large. So, you’ll hear me use the term community several times and that community can stand for anything, the home, your workplace, wherever there are multiple people together. So not just in anything professional, it is to be used whenever you are going into a fast food restaurant. You may bump into several different people, the workers there, any and everywhere that is considered community is where they’ll be able to use these restorative practice tools. And, I’ll go into detail once we start talking about each of the tools. Next slide, please.

So, the fundamental hypothesis of restorative practices is this, people are happier, more cooperative, and productive and more likely to make positive changes in their behavior when people in position of authority do things with them as opposed to them or for them. Again, people in position of authority doing things with them instead of to them and for them. So, when I say people in position of authority, I want you to remember the community piece. So, if we were talking about using restorative practices in the home, the person in position of authority would be a parent. If we’re talking about using restorative practices in between the parent engagement specialist and the actual families, there is really no person in the position of authority, but I would say the person who focused on bringing these two together would be the person who would be leading. So, they’re also not just in the working environment, in the schools.

So, you will have a principal or you’ll have a teacher and you’ll have students. The person in the position of authority would be the teacher, the principal, superintendent, things of that nature. So, more likely to change your behavior when people in position of authority do things with you instead of to you or for you. We’ll go into that social discipline window, but with you it’s basically giving you a voice. So as a child, if your parents are trying to redirect you or if you’re trying to be a parent who is actually helping your child grow and not doing things for them, then you would want to do things with them.

You want to teach them how to tie their tennis shoes, you don’t want to continue tie their tennis shoes for them. So, that’s just an example of that. So, it says in what way can that person do things with instead of to or for, when I give the examples of the person in position of authority. So, another example would be a director of any organization that wanted to have some change in that organization, that person can then go to the employees and ask them, what would they like to see in those changes?

So, getting their voice and hearing what they have to say and why they feel it would be necessary is doing things with them as opposed to to them of them before them. That can be applied also in the judicial system. So if there is a person who is facing different charges… I think an example of that with the judicial system would be the family. It’s family conferencing where the families, if they had a case with the Department of Human Services, the CYF, the protective piece of it, then if it’s not really serious in nature, the family has an option to determine what they would like to do to prevent them from returning to CYF, instead of the judge just mandating certain things happen with them. They actually listen to the voice of the family and the family members and take into consideration that those are their supports. So, hopefully I explained that, given us examples that you would understand. This is the basic fundamental hypothesis of why restorative practices are in play. Next slide, please.

So, here’s the social discipline window that I referenced and that gives you those words that we were just speaking of, doing things with them instead of to them or for them. So, we have an axis here and to the left of this axis is what is considered control and it’s a range. It’s limit setting, discipline, setting boundaries, things of that nature, and then there is along the bottom what is called support. And that is basic encouragement, nurturing and again, support, and they range from high to low on both sides. So if you can follow me, if you have a person who is high on control, that’s the top left on the bar to your left, the control, a person who is high on control but low on support, that’s your top left-hand corner, high on control, low on support. That is a person who’s considered to be punitive because they are definitely controlling the environment, they’re controlling the community, they’re administering discipline, but they have very low support, encouragement for helping that person move to the next level.

They’re really punitive in nature. So, the bottom left corner is a person who is very low on control and very low on support. So, they’re not basically offering anything, they’re not setting any boundaries, there is no discipline, and then there is also no encouragement or nurturing to ask what’s considered, neglects. This person isn’t doing much of anything in their community. Then there is the bottom right-hand corner which shows that it’s going higher in support, that’s high on support, you’re very encouraging, you’re offering a lot of support, but you are often very low on the left-hand side of control. So, that’s for a person who is permissive and every time I go over this with everyone, I always mention my grandmother. My grandmother was very permissive, so she was always saying, “Okay, well I know your mother doesn’t allow you to eat sweet cereal,” a whole bunch of sugar.

And she would just be like, “Oh, well, I know you’re trying in school,” and she was just very permissive. I think a lot of people can agree with their grandmothers and not everyone, but very I’ll let you do whatever you want to do, your mom is more of the strict person. So, that’s an example of being permissive, and then the top right-hand corner is high on both of those at the axis, which is high on support and high on control. So, that’s where it’s considered doing things with the person in the community. So, you are definitely saying, “I have to have some sort of control in this environment. I have to provide boundaries. They’re clear boundaries and I’m setting limits. There is a consequence to whatever this is that I’m setting these boundaries, but I’m also very high on encouragement in offering support and being nurturing.

So, what that looks like is for a parent, it is you are returning home after school, you have chores that you have to finish and you may have homework. There is an upcoming test, and so I need you to be able to study approximately an hour, maybe 30 minutes to an hour every day, so we can make sure that you’re doing well in this class. So in addition to this, I will help write out maybe the chart of the times that you need to do these things, the timeframe for your chores, the timeframe for you to eat dinner, and then your studying portion. Also, if there’s any things that I can help with assisting in this class, if I need to get you additional books or maybe some handouts, give you some links for websites that could support, maybe speak to the teacher to see if they have some things because I’m going to support you in getting to this piece.

So, it’s not just I have control over my household and you’re going to do just as I say, but here’s the non-negotiable. We need you to do okay in this class. You may not be the best, but we need you to do your best, and how can I help you get to that point? And, that is offering support, and I gave the different examples. So, that’s doing something with them instead of saying, “You’re going to sit down and you’re going to study and…” And, being neglectful is not setting any limits or asking them if they even accept they’re even expecting a test and neither are you reaching out to the teachers or trying to do your own research to help your child succeed. A permissive parent would look like, “Oh, I know that they’re stressing you, you have too much on your plate. This grade really may not matter. So, let me just help you give you the answers,” and you’re not actually teaching them studying techniques or anything like that.

So, that is a parent who would be permissive, and so again, I want to make sure that you understand when I speak of community, I mean beyond the home. It’s a family engagement specialist, it’s a person in position of authority at work if you have direct reports, any of those areas, you can utilize this. And what this is, when I refer to this as a tool, the tool is that you are supposed to remember to stay in the with box as much as possible. None of us are perfect. You’re going to bounce from box to box from time to time, you’re going to get frustrated, especially if any of you are parents.

I by nature was a punitive parent, but once I was exposed to these different tools and background and especially the trauma piece, I understood that it was necessary to be more restorative. It’s a power struggle when you start to be a person in position of authority in school, it’s a workplace or it’s your child. The goal is not to win the argument, it’s to win the relationship. So, how do I make sure this is a reminder I want to be restorative, I need to be restorative if I want to be successful? So, I’m using it as a tool, but it’s nothing that you can actually use, it’s a remembrance. It helps you remember, was I restorative? What could I have done better? So, just let me know if there are any questions in the chat and I’ll be sure to incorporate that. Next slide, please.

So, I guess you could tag these in the chat. So, what type of statement would you hear from a family engagement specialist if they were punitive? So, I would like for someone to give me an example of if the family engagement specialist has the several families that they’re dealing with, they’re trying to get them active, more participatory, having their children come to whatever because this could be a family engagement specialist within the community or that person could be part of a school district. So, what do you think that would sound like? Nic, you want to start? If you could think of anything-

Nichole Sims:

Sure.

Brandi Taylor:

… What would it be?

Nichole Sims:

So, I was thinking with the punitive piece. So an example I recently had, I had a mom who wanted to enroll her daughter in a magnet school and I knew the process and I knew how to help the mom. And so, I did stay in the with box and I had her do several things, find your login information for the district, found out about what your daughter’s going to do to at audition, get recommendations from the teacher, and then I sat down with her and helped her go through the process, so that she could do it again herself if she needed to or actually help other parents but if I were being punitive… And, then actually she missed our first meeting. So, I’m thinking if I was being punitive I may have said, “Well, you missed our meeting, and so I can’t help you now.” I would think would be punitive, like do it yourself.

Brandi Taylor:

Thank you, Nic. So, she gave multiple examples. The first piece was this is what I did to help her. You want to be able to connect, I’m going to show you how to do these things, so you won’t have to depend on me, but not only that, I’ll give you the skills to be able to help other parents as well. So I’m doing this with you, I’m not doing it for you, I’m doing this with you. So, that is restorative in nature. So when she said, “Oh, I’m not helping you because you missed the last meeting,” that would be neglectful, and a smidgen of being punitive because this is here where I mentioned our struggle. I just want to be in control. You didn’t come to the meeting and so here’s what you have, I’ll give you this little pamphlet and you handle it from here.

So, it is being neglectful and it is also being punitive. Now, what it would look like if she was permissive, it is just doing everything for her. She would not hand her, like you said, the step-by-step instructions. She would go over there, ask for her login, her password, do everything for her and explain it for her. Maybe not even explain it to her, but that’s what that would look like being permissive. So thank you, Nic. So, remembering-

Nichole Sims:

You’re welcome.

Brandi Taylor:

… To stay in that with box, so when you’re asking parents to attend these different meetings, being restorative in that type of setting is asking them multiple times, multiple days and being available every day. Right after school doesn’t work for everyone, just because you offer families spaghetti dinners doesn’t mean that they’re going to come out. It may not be a good time for them. Sometimes weekends are even better and I understand that. Sometimes mornings are better, so being restorative means offering opportunities and different options. Unfortunately, I know that everyone and I wouldn’t be telling the truth if I didn’t say that I was also a control person. I want you to be here at this time because this is what’s convenient for me, but understanding that if I want to have the best outcome, I want to be able to get the input of all of the people that I serve, that is being restorative. Next slide, please.

So, what restorative practices aims to do, so the aim of restorative practices is to develop community and to be able to manage conflict and tension about repairing harm and restoring those relationships, so it is two-pronged. So, there is a such thing as restorative justice, which is the back end of that, repairing the harm, but the restorative practices focuses on developing a community as well. But remember, community is in a home and school and in a workplace, so anywhere that you’re focused on building a relationship and developing a relationship that decreases the chances of the conflict. Now conflict is inevitable, you’re going to always have it in each of those communities, but once you have developed a relationship with whomever that person is, children… Not just the children, but maybe your direct report, once you develop a relationship and repairing the harm and restoring that relationship is easier.

So, you’ll be able to have these conversations and this person will understand that even though you have to redirect them or you have to discuss this conflict, it’ll make the conversation more digestible. They’re not going to just think that you’re coming at them and then punitive. So, that is the difference between restorative justice and restorative practice, and that’s definitely building that relationship piece first and then being able to hold them accountable and having these conversations to repair the relationship and the harm. So, I also have given an example of developing community in the home and why do you think that’s important. Do you want to say something, Nic? Do I have any questions, Jess?

Jessica Grotevant-Webster:

No questions so far [inaudible 00:34:33]-

Brandi Taylor:

I just see things popping up and I don’t [inaudible 00:34:35]-

Jessica Grotevant-Webster:

Just a few comments really saying that they agree with the examples given and the nature sometimes that we have.

Brandi Taylor:

Great, so I’ll go because Nic did give the last example. So, why do you think it’s important in developing community? And so, really I’m always transparent, I hope I don’t go too far, but I was the parent who was like, “I have limited time, so I just want you to do exactly as I say.” But, what happens is that you’re breaking down the communication with your child. The older that they get, the less that they want to have these conversations with you because they don’t trust you. All they know is that you want this immediate reaction to whatever or this immediate change. And so unfortunately… Well, I have a 24-year-old and an 11-year-old, so completely different parent, more punitive with my 24-year-old, and I am definitely restorative with the 11-year-old. And so, I understood that the being able to build this relationship and for her to trust me to come to me and tell me whatever concern she has and to tell me that no, she didn’t pass the test was very important because later on I would need to discuss these things.

Oftentimes children are keeping things from you if they don’t feel like you’ll be able to accept it or that you can’t digest that, that you may go off the handle, you may do something irrational. So, they’re afraid and they’re basically protecting you. Different reasons why, but it’s a whole lot of being able to raise a social and emotional child that is able to self-regulate because now they know that they’re in a trusted community in their household, that they are able to say whatever it is they need. Let me go back because everybody’s like, “Oh no, I don’t think children should ever say everything they want to say.” So, what I stress to my son is, you can say your feelings are valid. Just because you’re younger than I am doesn’t mean that you don’t have your own feelings, so your feelings are valid.

You can say whatever it is that’s necessary to say as long as you say it in a respectful manner because he can tell me to he disagrees. Now, 99% of the time I’m right. I’m just joking, but I will say to him, let’s talk about it. And so, it takes a whole lot of time, way more time than just, no, do what I say. It takes way more time, but what you are doing is encouraging your child to have a voice and to speak up and it’s just not with you, but with whomever, as long as it’s in a very respectful manner. So, that’s my example of why it’s necessary to develop community on the backend and then being able to repair the relationship whenever conflict arises. So not conflict as in harmful, but conflict, like I said, if she has to come back and say, “Well, I didn’t do as well or maybe I had a bad day at school and I had to be redirected,” she won’t be so fearful in coming and speaking with me. So, anything you wanted to share, Nic, or are you good?

Nichole Sims:

I’m good. I think those were perfect examples and I think everything that you mentioned applies in the realm too. I have my parent engagement specialist hat on right now and I think the same thing goes with parents. We do surveys at the end of different events and so that parents will share their feedback, what they thought about the event, what they thought could have made it better. And so, just encouraging those types of things is helpful from an engagement specialist standpoint because then we use what we learn from parents’ input to make future engagements better. So, I think it’s the same for in the home also, the same as in the home.

Brandi Taylor:

I understand. So can I have the next slide, please? So, these are also tools. You have on the left-hand side of your screen, nine affects, and then to the right of your screen you have the compass of shame. So, what I was explained in my training, I had a hard time accepting this at first, but just follow along with me. You have affects which are innate in nature and I always explain that these happen without any thought to the process, and that example that I give is whenever the doctor hits your knee and it jerks out with that little triangle. So, it’s not that you’re thinking about kicking your leg out or anything, it’s just a response immediately that you have no control over. And so, that’s what is meant by innate, it just happens. So, on this range here you have nine affect. The top two are positive affects and they range from enjoyment to joy.

So, from least to most, enjoyment to joy. The second would be interest, excitement. The third going down in the middle is what they call a neutral affect, and it’s ranging from being surprised to all the way to being startled, and then they’re remaining six, which are shame to humiliation, distress to anguish, then there’s disgusted and it does not have a range, and fear to terror, excuse me, anger to rage, and then dissmell. Dissmell was added later, and it’s like whenever you smell something pungent, that’s the negative affect, like a dissmell. And, these were all created from studying babies’ facial expressions, and this is where it comes from. So, you have nine affects there with the last six being negative affects.

Whenever your positive affects are interrupted for whatever reason, you then are taken into the very first negative affect, which is shame to humiliation. You immediately experience a very brief amount of shame that then pushes you into the compass of shame to your right. And once you experience that shame, you gravitate to one of the four poles. You’re going to either withdraw, you’re going to attack yourself, you’re going to avoid, or you’re going to attack others. So, let me go back to explain that process again. Whenever those top two positive affects are interrupted for whatever reason, you immediately experience a brief amount of shame that then pushes you into you gravitate to one of those poles. So, I will give an example of this by utilizing the example Nichole gave with her parent when she helped her with being able to log into the district website.

This parent is expecting this meeting, she wants the help, she wants to know how to navigate the system. If Nichole, she comes to this meeting, she’s all excited, I’m going to get information that I need… So, I’m not even going to use the word excited. She is just expecting to be helped because she’s not elated, she just knows that she’s coming and she’s going to receive the information she needs. So, she has an interest in it. So whenever Nichole is talking to her and then she says, “Well, you know you missed our first meeting, so I’m not going to be able to walk you through anything. I just want you to follow these steps and then you let me know if everything works out for you because I’ll be back in the next two weeks or so.” Immediately the parent experienced a brief amount of shame, very small, but what most people see is the secondary emotion of anger or the secondary emotion of withdrawing, and now they’re not saying anything.

So, if you are an engagement specialist and you see that this happens, you’re like, “Oh, she got really upset or she didn’t even say anything else after I said that. She hasn’t called anymore.” So, that’s what it looks like, but it’s because the parent experienced a brief amount of shame that oftentimes we don’t even don’t acknowledge, that we don’t understand that that’s what has happened. Sometimes you can fulfill the shame or humiliation and then you’re understanding why you’re gravitating to one of those four poles. And so, withdrawal looks like isolating yourself or literally running and hiding, that could be like a younger child. Attacking self is like putting yourself down or you’ll hear someone say, “Oh my goodness, I’m such a jerk. I can never remember. I’m sorry I forgot about the meeting.” Avoidance is a form of denial and not accepting it.

And, then there’s attacking others, which is just turning the tables and then blaming the other person, which would be the family specialist saying, “Well, you didn’t send me the invite,” or, “I missed it because you didn’t tell me the time,” or it can look several different ways, but what I want you to understand it is that when it says interrupting, it just simply means that it’s not what you may have been expecting. I can give an example of if you are listening to music and you’re all into music and then they’re like, “Hey, can you help me?” You turn around even if you don’t jerk at them, your immediate reaction is like, “Well, you may have startled me, so I’m feeling a bit embarrassed.” You experience that little brief amount of change. A lot of times it’s just simply because you’re vulnerable, the vulnerability of you being able to startle me by calling my name because I’m listening to the music.

So, you can be irritated. So, any of those four things are which you’ll gravitate to oftentimes the teachers explaining why they’ll see these different behaviors in children. So, if you have a teacher when the child walks into the room and they’re late and teachers are like, “Oh, nice of you to join me, Ms. Sims. You’re 15 minutes late.” And so, you’ll have a student that’ll be like, “Oh, so what? I’m allowed to be late and you don’t say anything to me,” and they’re really belligerent, and that’s an example of attacking others. You may have a student who will just put their head down when they get to their desk, then that’s the withdrawal part because they’re definitely feeling the shame, and then the avoidance part is they begin to pick on the other children in the class to kind of divert the attention from themselves.

And then of course, there’s attacking self, which is feeling like, “Oh my goodness, I’m a loser. I’m always late, I can’t get here on time.” So, whenever you see those four different reactions, again, this is a tool that it helps you remember things. So, if you see these reactions and families or parents understanding that something and their interests or their enjoyment has been interrupted, they have experienced a be brief amount of shame and here they are with the secondary emotion, but I will help you. Again, when I say community, a lot of this you can see in road rage. So, you can use these tools everywhere. If you have a sibling, your parents, you can use these things. Why did they have this type of reaction? Because somewhere in there there was a brief amount of shame.

So next slide, please. So, now there are three principles of what’s considered fair process. Again, you can use it anywhere. I’m going to stick with the family engagement specialist piece where the example Nichole gave because this is definitely geared to how can we keep this open communication and the parents involved. So, fair process is here’s what the boundaries were, remember the social discipline, here’s what the boundaries were and here were the expectations. So, my example I gave was passing the test and the support part of that was providing different links and help and worksheets and maybe a tutoring or something. If that doesn’t work out, I want to have a conversation. And so, a fair process is what fair process looks like in that and especially with the parent.

So, engagement is involving individuals in a decision that affects them by asking for their input and allowing them to refute the merit of one another’s ideas. This is the engagement piece, having a conversation. I’m using Nichole’s example. So, you are expected to attend these meetings. That is part of our stipulations and we went over it in the parent agreement, participating agreement. The explanation is everyone involved or everyone affected should understand why they’re having a discussion and why the decisions are made. So, then Nichole would go into simply saying, so because you missed the meeting, typically if we would deduct your reimbursement accordingly. So, this is a verbal discussion in telling you what the importance of attending each of these meetings are and how I would be able to provide resources, why it’s necessary. We want to help your children, we want to help you, and we want you to be able to navigate the system on your own and help other parents.

So, we need you to be present, so that’s the explanation piece. So the expectations are, so this time we’ll have this verbal communication and then unfortunately next time if you miss another meeting, we’ll have to then begin to deduct or reduce the reimbursement for your time. So, this is simply because this is what we outlined and we really want to be successful in this programming piece. That is the expectations moving forward. And so, that’s an example of the family engagement piece, but this is the same way you would handle anything when you’re a person in position of an authority. So, you can handle this with your students in this manner. You can also handle it with your children that way. The engagement is just simply having the conversation, the explanation is why we ended up here and the expectations is how we’re going to move forward to avoid this happening again., and what may be the consequence if it does happen again.

This is not a consensus, this doesn’t mean that they have to agree, it just means that you are being fair in the process of allowing them to understand that boundary setting, and then the accountability piece. It doesn’t mean that everyone who’s at the table has to agree. Your child may not agree, the family may not agree, they may say, “I think I should be able to miss three sessions without the reduction.” So, that’s what this is basically helping you remember, here’s how I need to handle this to say that I’m being restorative, to say that I have set the boundaries, and I have them being accountable as well as being supportive at explaining these three things. And so it’s engagement, explanation, and expectation. Next slide, please.

So, this is the fourth tool. So, there are multiple on this continuum that can be used. The restorative practice continuum, it ranges from informal to formal. It’s really heavy as the further you go to the right. The left is way least informal. It’s just basically using different types of statements, affective questions or the questions that elicit responses, their small impromptu conversations or conferences… I really should say conversations, where you are just pulling that person to the side. There’s a whole group or several that you can hold, and then at the end there’s the very formal conference that I used that example with the family decision making is the programming through CYF, where you would have all of the family members come together and you would have a full-fledged conference with food and you’re taking notes and you have dialogue. They could take days to plan, it costs more, you have to sign a venue and things of that nature, and that’s what by more formal. You actually have documentation, the performing out to the family and all of the participants of the conference. So next slide, please.

So affective statements, they set boundaries, they’re able to provide feedback and then they teach empathy and they are I statements. So, affective statements are restorative in nature because when I say I statements, you are removing the deed from the doer and you’re explaining how someone else’s behaviors have affected you. So given Nichole’s example, and this is a family engagement specialist, I feel very disrespected when you’re not on time for our meetings or where you mission your meetings and you’re a no call, no show, not just me feeling disrespected, but my time. I feel like you’re not taking this serious and I’m sorry, that’s the wrong way.

I feel as if I’m being disrespected for my time not being utilized whenever you are not on time or when you’re a no call, no show. The behavior is a no call, no show, and I feel a bit disrespected or my feelings may be hurt. You just use your feelings in regards to how someone else’s behavior has affected you. You can use that with your children, you can use that in the classroom, you can use that with your siblings. I feel unheard whenever you plan the family reunion without my input. All of those type of things are examples of affective statements that are definitely restorative in nature. Next slide, please.

So, here are affective questions and like I mentioned when I was going along the continuum, affective questions are designed to elicit responses. So if you’re dealing with a younger people and in your period, oftentimes you want to make sure that you’re asking these questions in order to have them provide a response. So there it is, open-ended questions that elicit responses, discussions, and present, and future proactively used to explore positive changes in behavior. So, whenever there is a conversation that is needed to be had, I know Nichole has used this, I know that Jessica used this with students in school, again, when you’re trying to explore positive behaviors, so you’ll ask the question of, what happened? So, what were you thinking at the time? What have you thought about since? Who has been affected by what you’ve done? And then, what do you think you need to do to make things right?

So there’s a card, these questions were brought about with the International Institute of Restorative Practices, and so the card has two sides and one is for the person who has been harmed and one is for the harmer. So, these questions are for the harmer. What do you think you need to do to make things right? And so, the only question that is missing from here that I’m not going to say the only question because this list is not exhaustive. You can ask additional questions as long as they’re designed to get a response and not just a yes or no. So, the question that is missing is why, and we typically ask that off top. So, why did you do that? Why? And then oftentimes someone will reply, “I don’t know.” So, that can shut the conversation down right then, but if you ask what happened, they will go into discussion.

And then additionally, when you ask why, it puts someone on defense, they feel like they have to explain theirselves when you ask what happened or they’re defending their actions when you ask what happens, it is doing things with them because you’re actually taking into consideration exactly what happened. And then when you ask what were you thinking at the time, that gives them an opportunity to go back and think about how that made me feel. It then helps you, if you’re thinking about the nine affects and the compass of shame, you will then when you say, what were you thinking at the time? You’ll begin to see that missing piece right there when they experienced the shame. Well, I was just thinking, why would they say that to me in front of everyone? Why would they embarrass me? But, all we typically see is the secondary emotion of anger. So, if you ask these type questions, you’ll be able to dig a little deeper and I think they’re appreciated. Did you want to comment on anything in regards to this, Nic?

Nichole Sims:

Woo, this was just flashing me back a little bit to whenever I first came to… I met Brandi and she dragged me to A Plus Schools.

Brandi Taylor:

Yep.

Nichole Sims:

No, I’m kidding, but she introduced me to the work that she was doing and initially it was for me to help my own daughter because at the time I think she might have been nine or 10, and we were having a really strong power struggle and she was beginning to get in trouble in school and be labeled and all of these different things. So, every time she’d come home I’d be like, “Why would you do that? I’m always getting these calls. You’re doing the same things over and over again.” And so after I was trained in restorative practice in one of Brandi’s sessions, my daughter got in trouble again. I sent her to her room and I literally had my card in my pocket and I pulled it out before I walked in her room and I was like…

And I walked into her room and I said, “What happened?” Which was different than my usual response, and I was blown away by the fact that she began to tell me what happened, instead of Brandi said before just shutting down and being angry and get away from me. So, she talked about what happened and in that moment I could see that she was really just being misunderstood and I was able to build a better, more positive relationship with her because then she trusted me to listen to her and then support the next steps.

And, then it helped with the teacher as well because I was able to go back to the teacher and say, “I think you felt like Krista was being disrespectful. In actual reality, she was just asking questions. That’s what she’s taught to do.” And so, it just changed the whole dynamic and I still carry that card with me five years later, it’s in my purse. I share it with parents as often as I can and it’s been life changing. So, that would be what I would add about these actual questions and how they work very well with… I’ve even practiced on my husband in different ways. So they work with different communities and like I said, they’ve been very, very helpful to me personally and professionally. So thanks, Brandi.

Brandi Taylor:

Yep. Thank you, Nic.

Jessica Grotevant-Webster:

Brandi, this is Jessica. I have an example too on their side as an administrator. During the pandemic, especially when families were extremely stressed out and trying to help their children online, I had a situation where a parent wrote a very nasty letter to one of my teachers and there was some inappropriate language in it. And so when I called her to talk about it, I asked her these questions, what happened? What were you thinking about when this happened? What are you thinking about now? And, maybe instead of asking the question about who was affected, I let her know how the language that she had used affected the teacher and how that made them feel and asked her if she needed some support in reestablishing that relationship with the teacher.

And, I think that went a really nice way with her because then afterwards, obviously she was embarrassed. She was feeling out of control and ashamed that she couldn’t help her child at home. So, I think that that is an example of even if you’re not asking all the questions structurally, that you can also make sure that you’re explaining the other side when you’re supporting, trying to rebuild those relationships after something happens like that from a school side.

Brandi Taylor:

Thank you, Jess. It was something that you said I wanted to… Oh, the different questions, you said, “Well, I didn’t ask you, what does she think she needs to do to make things right?” And, that’s what I meant by this list is not exhaustive. This is just to help you get the conversation started, but I remember when I was first being trained, when I was exposed to this and it’s like, don’t just read the part, what happened, what were you thinking at the time? Because it’s going to sound real corny and rehearsed, but you just want to know these questions, so you can be comfortable with being able to have these type of conversations. They let them know that you hear their voice, and so by all means, quick questions, just the purpose is to not to have a response and not just a yes or no answer. What can you do to help this person and be supportive of them if they’re trying to make the change? So, that’s what that is about. Next slide, please.

So small impromptu conversations, it encourages communication. It facilitates the opportunity to build relationships to use to resolve lower level incidents, to be able to model healthy approaches to conflict. So, a small impromptu conversation in the school would just be basically pulling… Not even pulling them to the side and maybe going to their desk and speaking to them in a low tone. You don’t want to ask those questions, not there because it may go too deep into a conversation, but you just want to recognize their behavior and then ask them, “Well, what can we do to change this really quick?” Again, it’s modeling a healthy approach to a conflict, so the other students will see you just having a conversation that’s not embarrassing, it’s not calling them out, it’s not being punitive in nature, but just having that conversation to the side. Next slide, please. So, I going to say that you can have those impromptu conversations too with your child in public.

So if they’re misbehaving, running in and out of their clothes or if you’re at a play and they’re just throwing some things out beyond what you’ve taught them and the behaviors when you’re out in public, you can have those little conversations. I thought we discussed this. We talked about behaviors once we’re out and about and the expectations and things like that, just having that small, little conversation. So then you have groups, group or circles, I’m sorry, and then circles are designed to be proactive and responsive. You use the restorative that ask affective questions. It can be used at home and at school or at work, and oftentimes it’s always used to build community. When you are using these circles, people begin, students, teachers, co-workers will begin to see what they have in common because you’re asking questions like we started out with this morning, like what is your favorite drink when you go to a cafe?

And so, you’ll begin to see all the little comments and you’ll laugh because you’ll see similarities or you’ll see things that you don’t like or what have you, but that is what this is building is used to build community, but they’re also responsive. So, sometimes you’ll have to have a circle in regards to things that may require a consequence like if someone is stealing… I have that at the end, missing art supplies in the classroom. You have to address it, you’ll just circle the children up and you’ll have a discussion about that. So again, that’s the missing art supplies, which is responsive circle and then you have your proactive ones. An example of that would be the question at the beginning, so we used that beginning question today, but it could be used in the schools at beginning of the week, a check-in circle to see how everyone is doing.

You can do thumbs up, your thumbs down, and also you can circle them up. I gave the example of your children, if they’re going out and you’re going to a play or what have you, teachers can use the circle for a field trip asking everyone going around, so what does appropriate behavior look like? That is a circle, and so it doesn’t mean that it’s just like you have to have this 50 minute conversation, but it just allows everyone to get input and that they understand what’s happening once you go out. So, those are good things. You can use it in the home as well. How are you feeling this morning? If you say that with your child and they’re like this and it could go either way, so you can expect different behaviors. Next slide, please.

So, this was the final tool that was on the restorative practice continuum, and it’s the formal conference, and this is definitely responsive. It takes more time to coordinate and it involves more people, typically it involves more money, but it’s also known as family group decision making or teaming and conferencing, and it can be used in school and the community, work, or workforce development. And, the example that I gave is that the families are coming together, they involve their supports and they are charged with providing an alternative to, well, the judge just coming down and mandating certain things, but having a discussion about how they can not be involved with CYF anymore or their supports because sometimes family members don’t even know that family is going through anything. And so once they identify who their supports are, their supports are happy to jump in and help them to avoid that situation again.

There’s a video that I show in my trainings about a young man who’s returning to school after being expelled, and he was selling marijuana. I definitely don’t remember his age, but he was in high school. And so before he returned to the school environment, there was a whole formal conference that included his friends, his parents, the principal, the different organizations from the community. And, their purpose gathering was saying, “So, here’s the expectations that we had for you in returning and what can we do to be more supportive of you being successful upon your return?” And, they also addressed the reasons why he was selling marijuana, and a lot of it had to do with his mom and her unemployment. So in that conference, part of their resolution was who could help the mom gain employment and help her work through her issues.

That was one of the remedies as well, and so again, if you just hear those details of trying to get everyone together, making sure that if they’re not present at the moment, make sure that they connect them to those resources, that this is a really powerful tool in itself. But when I mentioned the aim of restorative practices in the beginning, I talked about developing community and repairing harm and relationships. And, this is the piece that is more on the sort of justice side because it is a response to something that has happened.

And, I’m not going to say that there wasn’t any community development on the first part, there definitely wasn’t any communication in regards to when I talk about the young man. There was no resources provided from his mom up front or talking about how he can avoid selling marijuana and getting in trouble and being suspended and having a good time and things of that nature. So, they basically addressed it after he was in trouble. It was very helpful, but the reason why I stress restorative practices is because of developing the community and developing those relationship pieces. So next slide, please.

So, we’re not going to do this piece because I want to go into if anyone has any questions or concerns. Any questions? Is there anyone who wants to type into the chat some of the things that are challenging for them and if it’s in a school, if it’s at home, if you’re a family engagement specialist, if it’s engaging with families? I just wanted to use this time, and I know some people might want to have or provide examples. In my trainings, I do front load and I’ll ask Jessica to speak with her teachers and ask them for scenarios and things they’re having trouble with, and then I’ll provide examples because like I said, this may sound good in theory to use these things, but giving practical examples of, “Hey, this is what you should do to handle that,” is even better. Did you see anything, Jess?

Jessica Grotevant-Webster:

So there are a few, there’s one that says from Dr. Jackson, “There are two families that are at odds with each other, so how would you as a family engagement facilitator potentially use these practices to bring those families together?”

Brandi Taylor:

You don’t have to do the formal conference, that’s huge, but you can arrange it that way. So, I want two of the parents to sit down and have a conversation and you can use those affective statements, but remembering it’s a lot of front loading. Saying you have a difference, but we want you to be able to communicate affectively. The other piece to having that, it does not have to be a very formal conference, but you want to handle it in those steps because you want a front load and you also want to use what I call norms, and I typically have those up front, which is one person speak at a time, all cell phones on vibrate, no cursing, don’t yuck my yum is basically saying if the one parent was like, “Well, I ride my child to school?”

“Oh, my child catches the bus,” you don’t want to yuck that person’s yum. Everyone’s feelings are valid. You want to stress that it’s, I’m sorry, a safe space and that your voice is heard. What is learned here, leaves here, what is shared here, stays here. And, then there was one more that I’m forgetting, but if you use these norms that keeps the conversation from going too hectic, you can also use ELMO, which is enough, let’s move on because sometimes the parent may just go off on a tangent about one thing and you want to say those things up front, so they’ll know. Now ,that’s the building the community piece, so when you do say, “We’re going to have to move on here,” that they don’t feel offended and feel like you’re just cutting them off. So, using those norms to keep the conversation going, and then [inaudible 01:14:14]-

Nichole Sims:

The other being step up, step back?

Brandi Taylor:

Yep, thank you. Step up, step back is for the parent who may not say anything because they’re a little bit shy, so that’s feeling free to step up, and then there’s a parent like me who can dominate a conversation easily. So, just remembering to step back. That right there, those few norms helps break down those different barriers and it helps to build the trust in the conversation. You also may want to document a few pieces. This is if you felt comfortable facilitating this. If you document the things that they’re talking about and let them know upfront, that kind of holds them accountable for what they said they were going to do. So before we jump to any conclusions in the future, we’ll make sure that we have a conversation in a respectful manner. That might be something that you jot down. I hope that was helpful. Do you have another question?

Jessica Grotevant-Webster:

Yes, Vanda indicated how using these tools in order to gain trust of parents, if you are the Title I representatives, so if you’re working with students who are receiving Title I supports.

Brandi Taylor:

So, if you are working with the parents who are receiving Title I support, you want to gain the trust of a parent?

Jessica Grotevant-Webster:

Mm-hmm.

Brandi Taylor:

So, I’ve never worked individually with… That sounds like a district or a school that there’s a few children that received the Title I because I’m used to dealing with this whole entire school receiving the Title I. When you say gaining trust, it’s just bringing all the parents together.

Jessica Grotevant-Webster:

Vanda, do you want to come off mute and give a little bit more background on your comment for Brandi and Nichole?

Vanda:

Yes, it’s we have engagements. We try to do them every quarterly. We have one coming up February 3rd, we’re doing a bingo game and we try to do a Title I component in it and we’re working on reading and then we do after our engagement, we always do surveys and a lot of the comments be, “Well, I don’t like coming. It’s during the hours where I be making dinner and stuff.” So, we added the component where we provide dinner, we provide daycare. So, I’m trying to be able to trust these parents… Well, gain their trust, so they can come to me with the problems instead of waiting till the kids be to the semester when the kids are loose, when the testing come, the kids is low and low scores and reading and math. I’m trying to avoid that, if that makes sense.

Brandi Taylor:

It absolutely does, and it doesn’t sound like a trust issue, it sounds they’re just not participating, but I think the majority of what would help you is the front loading piece. Whenever you begin the conversations with them, you want to say exactly what you just said to us, which is we are here to support your children. We are trying to avoid having to repair the harm. We want to be able to help you in advance. We do these things to show that we do care. We’ve changed the times, we’ve done fun things, we’ve added dinner because we want to meet you where you are.

This is back to the fair process piece. We cannot appease everyone because there’s multiple families, but what we are doing is trying to hear the voices of just about everyone and changing these different times and providing things for you. At the end of the day, our job and our passion is to make sure that the children succeed and that they’re reading at their grade levels, but what we want to do for you as a parent is to provide you with resources in advance to help you, help your child, and for us to help you and your child. It’s a lot of front loading.

Vanda:

So, basically just keep doing what I’m doing and then basically see what happens, okay. [inaudible 01:18:52]-

Brandi Taylor:

You want to make note of that.

Vanda:

[inaudible 01:18:55] I was like, “What is…” Okay, thank you.

Brandi Taylor:

You’re welcome.

Jessica Grotevant-Webster:

So similar to Vanda’s, it sounds like getting some of that feedback from the families is sometimes difficult. So, do you have some ideas on getting parents to answer and complete documents that we need for schools in order to do our jobs well and again, that motivation to attend the meetings and the trainings that are provided.

Brandi Taylor:

So, I think the best thing for a parent that’s on the move and I’m giving myself… Nichole will definitely vouch for this with me. So, I’m a single parent and I’m on the move. I do 20,000 things at… Me being active at the school is probably the least of what’s important. I’m the responsive parent, I’m checking with my child every morning. Something that would help me as a parent that’s on the go is something simple and not overwhelming. And, I think as you said that you guys do this, it’s the texting. Most parents have access to the phones and they’re constantly on their phones, if they’re not checking their emails they’re making calls, so in order for you to get a response that would not take them a lot of time like logging on and putting the password or filling out a document, if they could just simply go to their phone and if you gave multiple choices it would make it so they could just X those boxes, but also giving them the opportunity to make comments.

If you have anything that you want to say, you know can add that because it may not be a multiple choice, but just giving them something fast and quick. I want to be able to give this information, but if I have to keep up with this paper and then I have to put it in my son’s backpack for him to get it back, then I’ve got to check and make sure he gave it to the teacher, I’m probably out of the process, but my suggestion is definitely keeping it simple and sweet. Back to the point of trying to help the parents is sending multiple ways of communication.

There are some people who don’t have phones, there are grandparents who have custody of their grandchildren. They are not tech savvy, sending it home that way. That is definitely a different way. You can send it in a newsletter, you can send it… Just finding multiple ways of reaching everyone. One of the barriers that I’ve found is that if there is a school who is kind of transitioning and they have students that are coming into the district from different countries or they speak different languages, there’s a lot of schools that only offer English, that is a huge barrier. So if you’re sending out surveys, making sure that you are sending them in the multiple languages because those families definitely won’t trust you either if you’re not taking that time.

Nichole Sims:

Also, could I add real quick to that? I was just going to say those are all some great ideas we use, Brandi, too, but from the school perspective, being like PTO, Brandi and I joke because I’m kind of opposite and I’m like in the school with my kids, but also I work part-time, and so we’re just different types of parents and there’s so many different kinds, but one of the things I would suggest would be maybe even offering small incentives for parents or students. So, that could look like kids get really excited, “Mom, if you fill out this survey and send it back, I get a $5 gift card or I get a dress down day on Friday,” or something of that nature, just really small incentives for parents or students and we find a lot that when you offer those small incentives to the students, they light a fire under the parents and so those work as well.

Jessica Grotevant-Webster:

Thank you for that, Nichole. I was just also thinking that in terms of going back to the fair process and the idea of understanding why things are important, what we’re going to do, what we have control over, part of that fair process to me is also noticing who is missing and that it is to make a friendly, non-judgmental reach out to say, “Hey, Nichole, we really missed you at the Title I parent conference. I wanted to make sure I gave you all the materials. It’s really important. I know that you want to work with your daughter on her reading skills. And so if you want to look them over, if you have any questions, I’d be happy to go over it again with you next time and we hope to see you at the next meeting,” or finding out and eliciting, is there a better time that works for you?

I know that one of my friends who’s a superintendent said she was surprised, but the latest feedback from her families is that mornings are easier because they’re already getting their kids to school and it’s easier to possibly be late to work than it is to leave early and in the evening when you have multiple kids and multiple activities going on that a lot of her parents are preferred like a first thing in the morning activity. So, just some things to talk about and to think about on there. I wanted to make sure, as we’re close to the end here, and I feel like I could talk about restorative practice all day, especially with the two of you, but I want to make sure that you please take a moment to fill out our survey. We put the link in the chat for you. We keep our Padlet and we continue to add resources on it based on all the conversations that we have coming up.

And, I also wanted to make sure that everyone was aware that we do have another community of practice on February 13th and this one is in the afternoon as we’re trying to juggle times that might work best for different people. We’re really excited about this one too. This is an evidence-based program called Parent Teacher Home Visiting, and it is a program that started out of California and has been cited at a lot of the research. And so, as we talk about these authentic partnerships and we talk about building trust and community, Parent Teacher Home Visiting programs are one, an essential way to do that. And so, we’re going to talk about that and about the impact that they have on students, families, and teachers in our next session. So, if you have not registered for that one already, we invite you to register for that as well. And as I don’t see any other questions in the chat, any parting words of wisdom, Nichole or Brandi for the group?

Brandi Taylor:

I just want to say I didn’t get a chance to talk about the trauma piece or anything, but I want to make sure that everyone understands that there could possibly be a breakdown in trust that does not stem from anything that you as an engagement specialist, a teacher, a counselor, whatever, that if it comes from you that oftentimes that the parents have other things going on, adults have other things going on that it’s just reflected differently and that the trust is needed is to work on it, to be able to say, this is why I’m here. It has nothing to do with you. It just doesn’t, unless you just recently got into something, but it also could stem from somewhere else, the fact that you just had this disagreement with a parent.

But, keeping that in mind you is… I know that I’ve bumped into people in professional atmospheres that had biases themselves, and so if I felt it, I know that parents felt it and just reflecting back to those tools would be very helpful. Please don’t just use this in your professional area. Think about this with everyone in your home because they get the short end of the stick because you’re coming home and you’re venting with them and you’re taking these things out on them. So, remember these tools in your home as well, please.

Jessica Grotevant-Webster:

Yes, words of advice that we try to live by. Thank you so much. Nichole, any last thoughts?

Nichole Sims:

I would just say if this is your first introduction to restorative practices, just take a little bit of time to learn more about them because they are certainly helpful in all aspects of life. And like I said, you can look up videos on YouTube, there’s lots of reading you can do on the internet and some school districts that use restorative practice will train parents and administrators also. Thank you.

Brandi Taylor:

I train parents and administrators as well.

Jessica Grotevant-Webster:

Yes, she does very well. They both do an amazing job.