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Restorative Approaches in Residential Care

Restorative approaches in residential care settings are inspired by the philosophy of restorative justice, which puts repairing harm done to relationships and people over and above the need for assigning blame and punishment.

Key Values:  create an ethos of respect, inclusion, accountability and taking responsibility, commitment to relationships, impartiality, being non-judgemental, collaboration, empowerment and emotional articulacy.

Processes and practices include interventions when harm has happened, such as restorative enquiry, mediation and group mediation. However there are also processes and practices that help to prevent harm and conflict occurring and which build a sense of belonging, safety and social responsibility. 

Statistics show that young people in Residential Care are disproportionately represented in the criminal justice arena.  This situation has arisen, not necessarily because children in care are more likely to offend but because the disruptive behaviours of the children have resulted in a call from staff to the police, often followed by an arrest and a caution or final warning.  It has been argued that a restorative approach instead can divert children in care from the criminal justice system by ensuring that the incident is dealt with by staff in such a way that both the wrongdoer and those affected reach a mutually agreed way forward without recourse to the police. A review of research showing what works best in children’s homes reports that the quality of the relationship between staff and children and also between the children themselves is a key factor in successful practice in both fostering and residential child care.  Ron Hart, manager of a children’s home in Hertfordshire, and an experienced restorative practitioner with Looked After Children, emphasises the positive impact on the young people and contribution to relationships.

‘…….Looked After Children often feel disempowered and institutional care cannot redress this.  It is ‘staffed’, and staff will only stay for a limited time on their shift before going home to their own lives.  Institutional care is reasonably inflexible due to staff rotas and shifts.  At times there are inconsistencies in approach.  Restorative approaches can help address these shortcomings since they provide a forum for children to voice their worries and concerns and feel heard.’

 Restorative approaches provide strategies that accord with recent studies of what works best in care settings.  Early reports from those homes using restorative approaches suggest benefits to both staff and young people.  They have also been consistently found to address the agendas of the three government policy papers – ‘Every Child Matters’ (DfES 2003), ‘Youth Matters’ (DfES 2006b), and ‘Care Matters’ (DfES 2006a).

 This piece is taken from a paper written by Dr Belinda Hopkins, director of Transforming Conflict.  The full version can be found on her website www.transformingconflict.org  

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