Integrating Restorative Practices with Affective Statements
October 10, 2018
Whole Child Wednesday
Affective statements, like restorative questions, is a practice that can be used by ALL STAFF who interact with students. Affective statements build a relational, restorative culture and community, strengthen social and emotional skills, and can be used as a response to challenging behavior.
Restorative Practice:
Affective Statements
Restorative Practices can be integrated into schools and classrooms to build strong relationships with students, empower students and staff, increase accountability, prevent conflicts and build community. Affective statements is one informal restorative practice
An Explanation of Affective Statements
Affective statements fall on the most informal side of the restorative practice continuum and daily use is a crucial first step in creating a restorative culture.
Affective statements are at the core of all restorative practices and are used to build and maintain relationships. Regular use is a crucial first step to creating positive classroom and school environments and building empathy skills.

It is a shift in the way we say things to "an authentic expression of feelings and an impact on relation to an action (positive or negative). Strengthening relationships by genuinely presenting oneself as someone who cares and has feelings!
 
Affective statements provide opportunities for students and adults to express their feelings both positive and negative. By expressing feelings toward a student about their behavior, teacher are humanized and become relatable. Students are able to cultivate empathy and learn social and emotional skills. The key is to remove the deed from the doer, conversing about behavior without assigning blame.
Resources
Restorative Reflection Worksheet
Ready to strengthen your restorative approach and communication skills? Use this How Restorative Am I worksheet to reflect on your own practice. Use this individually, in small or large groups as a way to identify areas of strength and opportunities for growth.
Restorative Questions Cards Still Available
You can respond to challenging behavior with one or more of these five questions
  1. What happened?
  2. What were you thinking of at the time?
  3. What have you thought about since?
  4. Who has been affected by what you have done? In what way?
  5. What do you think you need to do to make things right?

Interested in having the above cards with Questions to respond to challenging behavior and to help those harmed by others actions? Great to keep at your desk, in your pocket, or in your name badge to help you practice using these questions.
Our TWC team is always looking to highlight the great work happening in Tacoma Schools, please let us know about the great work you and your colleagues are doing. 
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