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About
Since 2008, our team has partnered with schools, legal advocacy groups, and units of government to assess and share lessons learned from initiatives grounded in restorative practices (RP) with youth. These approaches build connected, inclusive relationships between individuals and work through conflict and harm in ways that emphasize healing rather than imposing consequences.
Projects & Partners
Saint Paul Public Schools’ (SPPS) Whole School Restorative Practices (2016-present)
SPPS and its teacher’s union successfully piloted a formal project to implement high-quality, whole school restorative practices in twelve pilot sites. As evaluation partners, we developed an Implementation Evaluation Framework, documented our lessons learned in the School Psychology Review Journal, provided technical assistance on tailoring restorative practices to young people’s developmental stages, and conducted an outcome evaluation for the U.S. Department of Education education innovation research grant awarded to SPPS in 2018. Learn more about the ongoing work of RP in SPPS at their Office of School Support website.
(Re)Imagining Justice for Youth, Ramsey County Attorney’s Office (2020-present)
This is a collaboration with Ramsey County’s effort to change the way it responds to youth referred to the justice system. Our team aims to help them build more restorative, effective, and developmentally appropriate interventions. We provide technical assistance on research and best practices as described in our year one impact report. We also conducted an impact assessment comparing the RJY approach to current juvenile justice system responses.
Reimagining Youth Justice, Hennepin County Attorney's Office (2023-present)
Our collaboration with the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office Youth Prosecution Division began in 2023. We provide technical assistance, statistical analysis, and advice on best practices for youth accountability. This includes developing a report on current juvenile justice system responses and outcomes for youth; inform the design and implementation of differentiated justice system responses; assist with developing ongoing metrics and internal reporting practices within HCAO for ongoing evaluation of alternative responses.
Carlton County Restorative Justice (CCRJ) programs (2022-present)
Our team’s 2022 evaluation report confirmed that Carlton County’s RP approach holds youthful offenders accountable for their wrongdoing and supports them in making amends to those harmed without developing a criminal record. Our evaluation found that, since 2009, CCRJ has grown into a Minnesota model of restorative justice.
MN Department of Education Restorative Practices (2012-present)
Our technical assistance for MDE has included evaluating how MDE supports districts to adopt RP, documenting principles and practices of successful restorative schools, providing training and technical assistance for partner school districts, and producing written practical resources. Some of these and many other useful resources are available on MDE’s Restorative Principles and Practices website.
Youth Restorative Justice Initiative (2018-2024)
The Youth Restorative Justice Initiative (YRJI) seeks to build a national, replicable model of integrating restorative justice practices across all decision points (i.e., within schools, police, truancy, prosecution, and courts) connected to the legal system. Centered in Hennepin County, this partnership resulted in additions to the social science literature about police-initiative RJ for youth, and evaluations about RJ for youth in the court system.
Legal Rights Center Family Group Conferencing Evaluations (2008-2021)
We served as external evaluators on three projects. The first two evaluated the use of Restorative Family Group Conferences as an alternative to expulsion in Minneapolis Public Schools and St. Paul Public Schools.
Contact us
Our individual services typically start at $5,000. We work with you to fit your needs to your budget.
For more information and evaluation estimates, please contact Kara Beckman at [email protected].
Reports
The list of resources is for informational purposes only. The inclusions of any external links does not imply a recommendation or endorsement by the University of Minnesota of the views expressed within them. We do not control or guarantee the accuracy, relevance, timeliness, security, ADA compliance, or completeness of any information on external websites.