Building Restorative Spaces

"Umoja has peace rooms for mediation and counseling in two schools - hoping to increase the number to four by next year - where hard work can take the place of out-of-school suspensions. It's clear that most interpersonal issues among her interns come from past trauma that’s been left to fester, Dzanic told Truthout. "Our students did a few activities where they were really triggered, and it's obvious that they don't feel comfortable sitting with sadness or depression," Dzanic said. "But what we see is if we don’t deal with it, it comes out in spurts and in explosions. Students are like, 'When I was 7 ... .' And we say, 'Yeah, that was seven years ago, and you're not dealing with it. You've never been given the opportunity to really deal with it, and here’s what that looks like. ' " Restorative Justice is an answer to mass incarceration and to an increasingly punitive school system. Schools are often complicit, conditioning students to become prisoners by unnecessarily bringing them face to face with police to resolve problems that otherwise would mean a trip to the principal's office or the peace room." [ http://truth-out.org/news/item/18181-chicago-students-build-safe-space-practice-restorative-justice]