Quick fixes don't work at schools Guest: Belinda Hopkins

IE: Hello, and welcome back to another episode of We Can Find a Way, a podcast about conflict resolution. My name is Idil Elveris. This is a podcast that pioneers a culture change in handling conflict because conflict is everywhere. It is also the only bilingual podcast that addresses conflict on an international scale. We Can Find A Way is sponsored by Koç Attorneys at Law, the Istanbul and Antalya based boutique law firm.

In this podcast, I often cover issues around restorative justice. So in this episode, I will be talking about restorative justice again, this time in school settings. And my guest will be Belinda Hopkins, who is an expert in this area. I decided to make a change in the flow of the podcast episodes, so I will talk about who Belinda is at the end of the podcast and jump right in to our interview that took place on 14th September 2023.

Thanks for agreeing to talk to me today. How can restorative justice help students to resolve conflicts at school?

BH: Well, you kindly sent me your questions in advance, and I was very interested that you chose this as the first question. And the reason I was interested and curious is because for me, resolving conflict is just a small part of what I refer to as a whole school relational and restorative practice. And yes, part of it is about resolving conflict.

IE: This podcast is about, conflict. That's why I always go with conflict first.

BH: Fair enough. I mean, obviously it plays a large part. But I think in order to help answer, the question, I want to say that there's always a reason for conflict. The way that I work in schools now is to go right back into looking at the importance of relationship. What is the quality of relationships in a building, whether it's a school or a workplace or wherever it is and let's look at that. Now, I'm just beginning to work with one school at the moment. My first starting point is to spend some time with senior management and to obviously build a rapport, and build some trust, and then invite them to look at the quality of their relationships. Because if that quality isn't there, that safety, that trust, that honesty, then there will be conflict. And I think that's the same with whether it's the, leadership team, or the staff team, or the young people.

IE: Also the same in corporations or, any environment.

BH: Absolutely. So to start with, how do we resolve conflict? It's kind of the wrong way to start. It's: where are these conflicts coming from? And I'm very inspired by the work of Marshall Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication, and he would look at things like anger and violence as expressions of unmet need.

When I start to do work in schools, I encourage them to sit in circle. Not to resolve conflict, not to address harm, but to actually get to know each other. Using a talking piece, taking it in turns, giving everybody a voice, so they feel valued, so they feel respected, and just start to get to know each other. It's incredible how this regular sitting down in circle,taking turns- it could be on a particular topic, it could be I like to start very simply with just one sentence go rounds. This starts to develop trust and safety and also begins to develop the very skills and qualities we might need when there is conflict. Empathy, the ability to listen without judgment, the ability to step into the other person's shoes and see it from their point of view, those sorts of things. In a nutshell, relational restorative practice can help to resolve conflict. But in a large way, it does it by starting to address the issues that cause the conflict in the first place. And of course you do that, there are fewer conflicts. I mean the interesting thing about the word conflict in a school setting, and again, this is another reason why I was interested in you asking the question in that way, is that actually certainly in the UK, that's not necessarily what people think restorative practice is about especially in a school setting. They think it's about behavior management and are looking for sometimes quick fixes or tools or strategies for addressing disruption in the classroom or disruption in the playground and sometimes very minor things. But again, I go back to unmet need.

What we are doing once we get the circles established: We're also encouraging people to think differently about interpersonal interactions, if you like. So that we're developing a curiosity around what people are doing and what people are saying. What's that about? Where's that coming from? Whether it's a child shouting out in a classroom or a teacher shouting out in a classroom, there's always a reason for that. Some kind of unmet need, unexpressed feelings of distress or whatever it is that's leading to that outburst. And if people start to think like that, I wonder what's wrong? I wonder what's going on here? What's beneath the surface? That's going to develop far more empathic and respectful communications, whether it's between adult and child; child-child; adult-adult. And again, if you like, it's heading off conflict. Because what can happen in a classroom, for example, is if a student is talking when they should be settling down or not having difficulty with their work, or maybe getting into an argument with somebody else or whatever it is, if the teacher responds with curiosity: “what's going on here? What do you need right now to help you settle down?” as opposed to going in with an authoritarian or telling off, which will actually generate a strong reaction from the student. So then actually the conflict grows. Instead of being, let's call it “headed off” by a genuine desire to find out what's going on in the first place. It's about how we think about another human being.

IE: It's also what is available to us. And often I think people don't think they have time to address relationships and, feelings and all sorts of things. They want, as you have said, quick results, because they don't have time to build all this. But maybe we have the time, we just don't have it as a priority because we don't really think like that. So you're suggesting a paradigm shift for certain things. Everything is relationships. Everything is about listening and empathy.Often, not all the time. You're basically suggesting new ways of approaching conflict.

BH: Yeah. The issue of time is very important. If we go back to, let's say, a teacher in a classroom, most of my work is based in schools. It's true that a classroom teacher doesn't necessarily have the time to sit down and listen to a student in distress at that moment in time. However, the language you use, whether it's a reprimand or a gentle inquiry as to “what's up” takes the same amount of time. And whereas the reprimand might generate a negative reaction from a student, the genuine curiosity and empathic inquiry might help to settle them down actually very quickly. So in fact, sometimes the more confrontational, habitual response of a teacher actually leads to a more long drawn out, difficult situation. So I just want to say that. But the other thing is, maybe the student does need more time and the teacher, genuinely curious and genuinely caring isn't able to do that right now. Several things: One is there needs to be made available for teachers. Extra resources, extra support, where a student who is in distress, who can't settle down, who has had an argument, something's happening at home or whatever, to go, to be able to calm down. It's very hard to ask a teacher to manage that in the class. The responsibility for that lies with senior management. All the initiatives, all the extra time needed, all the extra support and staff needed has to come from a policymaker. Now whether it's her teacher or the board or whatever it is. That's why whenever I do work, I start with senior management so that they can see that they are going to have to make not only are they going to have to change their own behavior, they're going to have to make policy decisions to create time. Like for example, having circles. Some schools I know actually take time out of the school day to have circles. Now that has to be given to them by somebody in a senior position. A school teacher can't easily have the autonomy to say, I'm not going to teach my first lesson this morning, I'm going to run a circle. I mean, they might. Sometimes that might actually head bigger problems off by having circles. But often permission has to be given by a senior leader to say, okay, on a Monday morning. “We're going to start a bit later. All classes are going to have a circle or whenever it is”. I mean, that's very inspiring. School in Leeds, Carr Manor does precisely that. They have time for senior management circle; then staff circles; then student circles; and only then does the school day begin.

IE: That's great to hear, because I often feel that there is a tyranny of the curriculum. Teachers and school management feel, oh, there is a curriculum, we cannot finish the curriculum. They feel like they don't have the time for these kind of things. But actually, if there is a peaceful environment, there will also be the time for the curriculum.

BH: Again, it's interesting you should mention curriculum because several things there: One is if you haven't got a good atmosphere, a safe, trusting atmosphere in the class, you're not going to be able to work on the curriculum anyway. So that's one thing, pushing against resistance. The second thing is, I was a teacher, I still am a teacher, but with adults now. And I used to use circle practice as a way of teaching. So I used to teach modern languages. Often, we would be in circle and I would be using games and activities drawn from circle time, which is a practice used in the UK, using simple games to teach the language. My second agenda to teaching the target language, whether it was French or Spanish, was to develop the social and relational skills of the students in the classroom. But through the teaching, delivering the curriculum, using the values and principles of circle. There is a value in having a circle that is dedicated to building safety and trust and the proactive community building circles which many teachers use now in tutor time. But I'd love to think that teachers would also see that there are advantages in this pedagogy to using circle values and principles in the way they deliver the curriculum. And there seems to be evidence to suggest that actually it can be very, very effective. It's not either or.

IE: So what kind of issues, practices, conflicts do we see in schools that might be resolved or addressed through these mechanisms?

BH: Imagine that it's going to be different in many schools. I'm working on a new book at the moment and have been looking at the youngsters who find themselves most in trouble, you could say getting into conflict, most conflict with teachers. So therefore, which is often described as a discipline issue, we might call it conflict. The youngsters who get most involved in that are: your youngsters from low socioeconomic backgrounds, your Afro Caribbean kids, mostly boys, in fact boys mostly through all of this, your special educational needs children, your children who are in care, and your jet ski traveler children. And those children are disproportionately targeted in classrooms, punished, suspended and excluded all the time. These are also the children who do least well academically. And I've been looking at why that might be. It's often the case that their basic needs for inclusion, acceptance, support, understanding are not being met. And therefore, their behavior is an expression of that disaffection, alienation, unmet need. And behind that is adverse childhood experience and trauma.

And one of the things that I think is brilliant about restorative practice in schools these days is growing realization that it needs to be trauma informed. So the kind of conflicts that occur, again, unmet need, when somebody doesn't feel heard and doesn't feel understood and their need for those things is not being met. That's where they flare up. And so the restorative response is first and foremost, one of listening without judgment. What's going on? And these are the same questions that people who are watching us, who are familiar with restorative practice would know about. “What's going on? What's happening? What were you thinking when that was happening? How are you feeling? What are you needing?” And when that person starts to feel heard and understood, then they may also be in a place to start to think beyond themselves into who's being affected by their behavior and what needs to happen put things right. But without that empathic listening first, you're not going to have that willingness for accountability. So it's not about specific incidents. I think it boils down to youngsters’ unmet needs not necessarily being listened to in a positive way. Not just youngsters. There will be conflicts in school between adults; between children; between adults and children; but also between parents; parents and carers and adults in the school. All of them require this patient empathic, authentic curiosity and a listening ear. What is the unmet need here? What's going on here?

IE: And how does such a mechanism work once it's established at a school?

BH: I'm not sure about the word mechanism.

IE: It's a very authoritarian question, isn't it? Let me rephrase it as process maybe?

BH: I believe that relational and restorative practice rely on some very, very key ideas and, not just myself. I mean, I think it's worldwide. And that's the importance of giving voice. By developing these proactive circles, you start to give people voice. By listening to people when things aren't working out, whether it's a distress or whether it's a conflict or whatever it is. We're giving people a voice, but we're also giving them a chance to express what's going on inside. Without that, these things can be very superficial thoughts and feelings and needs. Those things, if you like, contribute to a framework for listening which goes through all of those things and then culminating in, okay, what are we going to do to put things right? And that's another key idea in restorative practice, is it's the people who are most effective, who come up with the ideas rather than it being imposed. So this process is one of deep listening. Surfacing the unmet needs behind the behavior, identifying the needs to move on, and then working with whoever's been affected, whether it's an individual or a pair of people or a group, to move forward, to find things to ways of putting it right. In a school that's embraced this whole relational and restorative culture, you'll have regular circles, proactive circles, not problem solving circles. You'll have ideally, in the end, everybody trained in this kind of structured, non judgmental listening. I would say that after having developed circles, the next goal of a school going down this route would be to establish what I call a listening school, so that everybody has somebody they can go to. And you can develop buddying systems, mentoring systems, because young people can be trained as mentors as well as adults being budies for their colleagues. So everybody's got somebody that they know will listen to them if something's amiss.

And then you also need people trained in one to one. I mean, I call it two people involved. Mediation, essentially. You're listening to people, you're surfacing their thoughts and feelings and their needs. You're working towards what can be done to put things right based on those needs, I would say. And, leaving them to work together. Now, the only thing I would say is that if in cases where not so much conflict, but harm, if one individual has caused harm to somebody else then, you do need to be very careful that there's not an implication that it's an equal process, and that both sides are equally responsible and equally accountable. You do need to be careful about that. But very often in a school, sometimes this concept of victim offender which, by the way, I don't use in schools, but it rather depends on the day out on the street. One person can be an offender one day but then the next day it's the other way around. And when I talk about this in schools, some of my youth justice friends say to me, it's actually the same outside Belinda, so which is why I'm no fan of these restorative justice processes where you ask certain questions to the so called offender and different questions to the so called victim. I think of them as people, and we ask the same questions to everybody.

IE: What does it take a school to start this kind of practice? A lot of people who are listening might feel that in their country, the system is very centralized. They can't do anything without coming from the central government, et cetera. So a lot of schools find it hard to implement their own thing, even in that kind of system, what can schools do?

BH: You raised a very good point. It might be, first of all, worth knowing that I've worked in a lot of different countries in Europe, for example, in Catalonia, where I've been working with colleagues there, particularly Monica Alberti I'll name because I think she's amazing. She has been pioneering this work to the point where the government has actually listened. So they are now rolling out restorative practice across the whole of Catalonia. Every school. By gradually raising awareness at school level, at, department level, at city level, you actually do start to maybe get other people thinking and those with the power at the government level to start making a difference. And as I say in Catalonia, this idea that actually let's put it across every single school, which is fantastic.

I'm working in Belgium, I've been working in Estonia, but most recently I've been working also in Eastern Europe, lots of different countries, particularly for example, at the moment, Georgia. The project there is being supported by the Ministry of Education which is fantastic. And I think organisations like the European Forum for Restorative Justice, which has members across Europe and beyond, can do a lot to raise awareness and to lobby education departments to actually think about this, to support schools. So let's say that actually that's also possible. At the school level, I always start with the senior management team. I think it's absolutely vital that the senior management team, the leadership team start to look at these issues straight away. The value of looking at relationships, how do we relate to each other;how do we support each other; how do we listen to each other; how do we resolve conflicts when they occur between us as a team? Why would a school not want to do that? I don't think they need permission from anyone to start improving their relationships because put it another way, they are expected to be an effective school. And being an effective school means, first of all, being an effective team. I think no government would object to a senior leadership team working on themselves to make themselves more effective and more efficient. And you do that by developing good, trusting relationships so they can start there. They are learning the skills that we've just been talking about: of empathy and nonjudgment and being interested in what makes the other person tick and showing that they're valued and giving them a voice. And once the senior leadership team have developed that sense of trust and honesty and commitment amongst themselves, it will be natural for them to spread that out to the whole staff team. Because a dysfunctional staff team is not going to be an effective team of educators. Teachers are humans too. They have needs. They need respect, understanding and support and appreciation. Therefore, you don't need a government to say we like you to improve your staff from relationship. It's kind of like a no brainer. And what's great is that relational and restorative practice provides the tools which a school might be looking out for. If you've got a team of staff who don't talk or you've got a staff where there's cliques or people in conflict, schools need those things. So to my mind, you could make a school much better without ever talking about restorative practice for students and simply concentrate on improving the quality of the workplace by giving the staff, the adults these skills. Once staff start to work in this way, sitting in circle regularly, using those listening skills, inevitably, they will see the advantage of doing that with the students because it's helping them as people. So then it grows that way from the senior leadership team to the staff to the students. That's different from how I used to think about it. I promoted it as something that adults could do with and for children. I think that got us up a cul de sac. And unfortunately, the cul de sac that some people around Europe are still doing, they are talking about restorative practice in schools as if it were a behaviour management tool. And I think, unfortunately, that has led to some less than, effective practice.

IE: It, applies to others, but not to me because I'm already very good.

BH: What's happened is cherry picking. So there is actually, at the moment, a pushback from schools. And I've read reports from newspapers in Scotland and even I've read things that English behaviour Czar has been writing about restorative practice. And it's saying, “oh, it doesn't work. Teachers are feeling powerless, kids are saying they're getting away with things”. This is all such a misunderstanding of what relational and restorative culture can actually achieve in schools and it's not being implemented properly. It's easy to take. That's why I was jarring a little bit at the word mechanism even process. You can't just take something, the bit of restorative practice you like. “Oh, yes, okay. Well, we'll carry on with our authoritarian ways in classrooms, and then when a child gets kicked out of class, we'll have a restorative conversation with them, show them the error of their ways, and then pop them back into the classroom” as if that was restorative practice. It doesn't work like that. It needs to be much, much more holistic. We as adults need to change ourselves before we can expect, before we can even begin to help youngsters do things differently.

IE: So, how many schools are we talking about at least in the UK that apply these principles? Can you give us like a percentage or how this is going.

BH: To be honest, no, I have no idea.

IE: There is no such policy? Or is it implemented on a school by school basis? Like, tell us a little bit more.

BH: In the UK it is because the Department of Education in our current government is not open to this kind of practice. In fact, at the moment, it's actually against this kind of practice because the government has got a series of policies in school. We've got our national curriculum, we've got our, inspection service; we've got high stakes testing; and we've got our league tables where schools are being so we've got this sort of concept of kind of marketization of schools. The academies is part of it, where schools are being put into competition with each other and any child who is not able to fit into that, to do well in their tests to toe the line, is being gradually pushed out into alternative accommodation, alternative education. And so the whole mindset of our current government is one of power and control, compliance and, getting rid of those who won't comply. Our current government policy is absolutely the opposite.

However, there is a pushback from people who understand the reasons for some of this behavior. There's been a relatively recent report by a group of mental health charities researching the impact of punitive behavior systems on children's mental health and well being. And so you'll find that people who really understand about children's mental health and well being, absolutely against these punitive, authoritarian ways of responding to children. The research is showing again and again and again that these things are not helping young people. So, hopefully there'll be a pendulum swing back. So, when I first started doing this work in the 2000s, there was much, much interest in a different government. Much interest. And I would say there was at some point, probably, some restorative practice in some schools, in every local authority around the country. You'd have restorative coordinators in most local authorities, in most London boroughs, we had wonderful conferences where people would come together and share their experiences and then it just sort of went under for a while which is why I don't know what the situation is at the moment. So I don't know. But I do know that there is a groundswell of interest again. And there are an increasing number of local authorities again who are beginning to look at this. And I'm hopeful that there will be a resurgence in interest in its use in schools. Cross my fingers.

IE: Is there anything you would like to add?

BH: I think you've asked some good questions. It's got me talking, really. I think because of the work I've been doing with my new book, I'm even more passionate about the role that, relational restorative practice can play in helping schools to become more socially just. I saw something the other day from somebody, Kathy Evans, who wrote a book together with Dorothy Vaandering in Canada. And they actually do use the phrase restorative justice in education. For them, the word justice is aligned to social justice, not criminal justice. I certainly think that relational restorative practice can really help a school to address social justice issues and those cohorts of children that I mentioned to you who are disproportionately punished and disproportionately let down by schools many, many schools can need to be at the forefront of senior managers minds when thinking about how they respond to difficulties in schools. I'm really excited about it. I mean, apart from the transformation of a behavior management system, schools give up the idea that when somebody does something wrong, they get punished for it. But when somebody does something wrong, let's look and the reasons why. Hold them to account, expect them to put it right, but offer them support so they do it differently next time. That is what education should all be about.

The work I'm most proud of is with schools that I've been working with for many, many years, where they don't use punishment anymore because they know that it just misses the point, if you like. The transformation of the behavior management system is one way, because if you aren't m targeting kids, isolating kids, excluding kids, then all those kids I mentioned who are disproportionately targeted in your average traditional school will be getting a much more empathic, helpful response. So that's already making a school more socially just. Coupled with circles and real listening, so that though the unmet needs of those cohorts, which are very similar are actually addressed, you probably won't get so many of the problems in the first place. And it does include looking at the way a school addresses racism and sexism and classism and ableism and homo and transphobia, all of those things. Once you start looking at relationships in a school, you have to start addressing. And a circle can create a container where those sorts of very difficult and delicate issues can be talked about in a way that people can feel safe, whether it's somebody who's on the receiving end of any of those or people who come to realise maybe they're part of the problem. Both of those are very delicate conversations but I really believe in the power of the circle. So thank you for giving me time.

IE: Belinda Hopkins is the Director of Transforming Conflict, which is a provider of training and consultancy in the field of restorative approaches in schools, residential care and other youth settings. Belinda pioneered the application of restorative principles in school settings in the United Kingdom in the late 1990s and created the first training course in restorative skills developed specifically for teachers. She is also one of the most published authors in the world in the field of restorative approaches in both schools and care. Her pioneering books Just Schools, Just Care and the Restorative Classroom are internationally acclaimed. She also wrote a PhD that researched the implementation of restorative approach in schools.

She and I discussed how a restorative approach can help students build relationships and values, hence, help with conflicts at school, whether with fellow students, teachers, but also among members of the administration. We also discussed whether schools need the government or the Ministry of Education to implement these type of measures at the school level.

I hope you enjoyed this episode. I thank my sponsors, Koç Attorneys at Law who are staunch believers of using dialogue and finding common ground to resolve conflicts. They support this podcast in the hope that it will help advance the much needed discussion on deescalation and reduction of polarization in conflict situations within the legal practice as well as in the public discourse.

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I would like to close by thanking my marketing manager Julia Nelson and musician Imre Hadi and artist Zeren Goktan, who allowed me to use their music and photograph in the podcast. Thank you and hope to meet you again in the next program.