A Collaborative Approach to School Safety: Merging Student Voice With School Personnel's Use of Restorative Practices for Effective Prevention ¹

Abstract

We describe a holistic approach to promoting school safety that merges an emphasis on student voice with staff training in restorative practices. We first describe current approaches to keeping schools safe based on the existing research literature. Given that most of these approaches rely on access to credible information about potential threats to school safety, we then discuss student voices as one critical source of information, especially at the middle and high school level. We report on a recently developed tool designed to encourage students to share threats to school safety they are aware of with adults. Initial testing identified potential barriers and facilitators to students' willingness to share information. We discuss teacher training in restorative practices as one approach that might address some of these barriers, including anti-snitching cultures in schools, students' lack of trust in adult responses to student-identified concerns, and punitive school climates. Based on recent work, we identify barriers and facilitators to implementing restorative practices in schools. We provide recommendations about potential strategies to merge student voice with school personnel's training in restorative practices to minimize peer victimization that can escalate into violent behavior.

Citation

Vincent, C.G., Walker, H., Espelage, D. and Marquez, B. (2023), "A Collaborative Approach to School Safety: Merging Student Voice With School Personnel's Use of Restorative Practices for Effective Prevention ¹ ", Collins, L.W., Landrum, T.J. and Cook, B.G. (Ed.) Issues Around Violence in Schools (Advances in Learning and Behavioral Disabilities, Vol. 33), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 153-169. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0735-004X20230000033010