Practitioners
Peta Blood
“….we need to have our relationship antennae up and alert to signs that students are becoming disconnected – because it puts us at risk, them at risk and our community at risk.”
Background Information
Peta Blood is an international contributor to the field of restorative practices, with a particular focus on building sustainable practice in schools. She has worked as a member of the former Restorative Justice Unit, New South Wales Police Service in the areas of policing, education and organisational change. She is on the advisory board of Emotional Literacy Australia and is currently working towards the development of an international restorative practices association.
Peta, what issues do you think are underlying causes for bullying, harassment and violent behaviour?
I am firmly of the belief that it is far harder to hurt someone when you have a good relationship with them. Disconnectedness and fragile relationships in schools contribute to bullying, harassment and violent behaviour. I also believe that the adult responses around children contribute to bullying. Children watch the adults around them and take their cues from them. They are either healthy cues or unhealthy ones.
How does the Restorative Practices approach deal with these issues?
Restorative practices is all about relationships. When something happens it has the potential to harm and damage relationships. Therefore we need the capacity to take responsibility for our behaviour, to understand the impact this has had on others and together look at how we can repair the harm and move on. Restorative Practices is about the range of practices used to facilitate this process.
What do you see are the strengths of this approach?
I think the main strength of restorative practices is that not only does it give schools the ability to deal with harm and inappropriate behaviour, but also it’s primarily concerned with repairing relationships or developing the understanding that we need to have strong healthy relationships in the first place. It focuses people’s minds on: “Is this a breach of the rules that we have to deal with, or is it actually a breach of relationships?”
Who/what influenced the direction taken in this approach?
Restorative practices has developed from the restorative justice movement that was initiated
in North America in the 70’s and was strongly influenced by the Mennonites who drew on the
practices of the Canadian Aborigines. Basically these groups felt that the justice system was
failing to address the needs of victims or offenders and that there had to be another way.
Circle process and victim/offender mediation were the first two processes.
In 1991 Terry O’Connell, a sergeant in Wagga Wagga heard about this process and decided to give
it a go with school-based incidents that involved Police. He developed the scripted model of
conferencing, which is the model preferred by schools around the world. Marg Thorsborne, a
school guidance officer in Queensland, ran the first conference for a serious incident in a
school in 1994.
Restorative practices have evolved significantly since then with the range of practices expanding
and the understanding that this provides a platform for cultural change in schools.
What are you working on now?
My next challenge is to write and produce a book that helps educators to implement restorative practices and bring about cultural change in schools. In the ACT, we have made a profound difference in the lives of many young people, teachers and parents. Only today, a principal that I trained several years ago said: you don’t know how much of a difference we have been able to make in our school and to many young people, that previously we were unable to impact. So that remains my greatest challenge – to ensure that it is sustainable long term and that we can help others in the world to achieve the same results.
Where can schools find more information?
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