Facilitating Restorative Group Conferences

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Facilitating Restorative Group Conferences
RGC

• Lesson 5 Further Development of Conferencing
  Skills

Minnesota Department of Corrections with the
National Institute of Corrections
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Lesson Objectives (1)

• Facilitate preparation meetings and conference
  meetings in a variety of situations
• Create a safe place for all the participants
• Work with difficult people and situations
• Identify and utilize re-integrative opportunities

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(2)

• Understand the characteristics of effective
  conference agreements
• When called for, write a conference agreement
• Bring a conference session to closure
• Understand the importance of monitoring progress
  toward steps in the agreement

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Seating in Semi-Circle or Circle
S/C
V
V
S/C
S/C
F
F
S/C
S/C
S/C
O
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Conference Site

• The room
• Size
• Lighting, heat, circulation
• Chairs, refreshments table
• No noise or disruption
• Written directions, if helpful
• Refreshments, tissues, name tags
• Atmosphere

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Also Think Through Ahead of Time

• Scheduling arrival times
• Possible separate waiting rooms
• Sharing facilitator roles with your
  co-facilitator
• Order of speaking at the conference

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Conference Preparation Checklist

• Handy reference for the many details
• Go through each item well ahead of time

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Conference Script/Outline

• Intended as an aid
• Use as written during this training
• After training, adapt for your own use, but
  always
• Start with a standard preamble
• End with a standard closing
• In the middle, explore harm, effect, remorse,
  reintegration and healing with more flexibility

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Steps in a Conference

• Preamble facilitator intro and role, intro of
  participants, purpose, agenda, ground rules, (set
  tone)
• Participants stories victim or offender
  (victims choice), the other, supporters of each,
  and again until done
• Repairing the harm agreement discussion and
  consensus decision
• Closing the conference

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Practice Conferences

• Six people per team
• Take turns facilitating so everyone gets
  experience
• Observers (people without a role to play) use the
  Communication Checklist to give feedback

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Processing Questions

• How did it feel in each of your roles?
• What did you see that you liked?
• Was a reasonable agreement reached?
• What made it difficult to reach consensus?
• What helped to move the group along?
• How could the facilitator have improved their
  performance?

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Practice Conferences Without Pre-Meetings

• Six people per team
• Take turns facilitating so everyone gets
  experience
• Observers (people without a role to play) use the
  Communication Checklist to give feedback

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Processing Questions

• What problems did you experience that could have
  been avoided with pre-meetings?
• Facilitators How did you feel about facilitating
  the conference without knowing more about the
  participants?
• Now that you have experienced this conference,
  how would you prepare for future conferences?

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Evaluation of Today

• In groups of approximately 5 people, discuss and
  note
• What worked well for you today?
• What you would like to see done differently or
  added tomorrow?
• A reporter from each group will stay after to
  report the groups feedback

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Agreements

• Repair the harm to the victim
• Repair the harm to the community
• Assist the offender to make better future choices

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SAM

• Specific
• Attainable
• Measurable

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ReviewOptions for the Agreement

• Financial payment
• Work for victim
• Work for the charity of victims choice
• Restorative community service
• Apology
• Participation in education, assessment, or
  program
• Anything else that feels fair to all participants
• Combination of the above

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Restorative Community ServiceCharacteristics

• Worthwhile work
• Youth as resources and a focus on outcomes
• Attention to transferable competencies
• Sense of accomplishment, closure and community
  recognition
• Focus on helping the disadvantaged

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Community Service Ideally

• Provides opportunity to make amends
• Adds value to the community through
  contribution of offender
• Changes community's perception of offender
• Increases investment of offender in the
  community
• Develops job skills for offender
• Provides positive role models for offender
• Creates relationships that strengthen community

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Know Local Resources

• Information about free and low-cost
• local services
• Hotlines, information networks
• Chemical dependency treatment/evaluation
• First Call for Help
• Translators/language services

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(2)

• Child care, crisis nurseries
• Victims services
• Counseling
• GED programs
• Education in
• anger management
• fire safety
• cognitive skills restructuring
• conflict resolution
• conferencing
• Opportunities for community service

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Practice Conferences Pre-Meetings

• Six people per team
• Take turns facilitating
• Do pre-meetings consecutively
• Observers (people without a role to play) use the
  Communication Checklist to give feedback

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Processing Questions Pre-Meetings

• How did it feel in each of your roles?
• What did you see that you liked?
• How could the facilitator have improved their
  performance?
• Facilitators how well do you think you
  understand each persons feelings?

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Practice Conferences Using Agreement Form

• Do conference
• Use agreement form if agreement is reached
• Specific, Attainable, and Measurable

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Processing Questions

• How did it feel in each of your roles?
• What did you see that you liked?
• Was a reasonable agreement reached?
• What made it difficult to reach consensus?
• What helped to move the group along?
• How could the facilitator have improved their
  performance?

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The Grand Conference

• ______ people per team
• Facilitators are responsible for name tags,
  tissues, seating order, etc.
• Do pre-meetings and conference
• Use agreement form if agreement is reached
• Observers use the Communication Checklist to give
  feedback

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Processing Questions

• How did it feel in each of your roles?
• What did you see that you liked?
• Was a reasonable, SAM, agreement reached?
• What made it difficult to reach consensus?
• What helped to move the group along?
• How could the facilitator have improved their
  performance?