Improving school communities.
Transforming conflict-avoidance into conflict-resilience. . . through perseverance and grace.
How we are creating a culture of care.
Background
Billings Public Schools is creating a Culture of Care in District 2. Culture of Care is a restorative justice effort informed by the work of Dr. Tom Cavanagh and designed to improve safety/reduce crime by promoting community and belonging in schools.
Key elements are:
Accountability
Responsibility
Respect
A combination of prevention and intervention strategies are used to promote these key elements within the school community. Tier 1 Principles of Restorative Justice and Proactive Restorative Practices and Tier 2 Reactive Restorative Practices for Minor Behavior Problems have been introduced at various levels in select schools in the district. Tier 3 Reactive Restorative Practices for Major Restorative Problems has not yet been implemented.
Proposed Partnership
Billings Mediation Center serves the community by providing alternative ways to handle conflict of all kinds. Our services are grounded in restorative justice philosophy and we would welcome the opportunity to work with District 2 to expand current programming.
Tier 3 activities are aligned with our facilitative mediation processes and could be easily tailored to school needs:
Preconference activities – in cases of major harm, BMC could contact the parties involved and invite them to mediation.
Restorative Conference and Agreement – if the parties agree to mediation, BMC would schedule and hold a restorative conference. Any agreements made during the conference would be drafted in the session and signed by the parties.
Restorative Reentry Circle – if desired, a mediator could collaborate with teachers to prepare for or participate in a restorative reentry circle, as needed.
Who We Are
Billings Mediation Center is a local, non-profit 501(c)(3) established in 2018.
Our Mission: To assist people in resolving conflict in a way that restores, preserves, or redefines their ongoing relationship through conflict resilience.
Our Vision: To create and support an avenue for people to reduce and resolve conflict, for the benefit of our community and children.
Method
The Billings Mediation Center uses a type of mediation called facilitative mediation, which
focuses on meeting the interests of each party to create a sustainable agreement. Decisions
cannot be imposed on either party and resolution does not happen until both parties agree on a
solution.
Facilitative Mediation works for a wide variety of disputes including those that would not be
brought to a court or where the parties wish to avoid court proceedings, e.g. neighbor disputes,
student-student disputes, sibling disputes, families struggling with how to take care of an elderly
parent, parent-child disputes, etc.
Team
Our professional mediators are certified in facilitative mediation, experienced and passionate
community members who adhere to Professional Standards of Practice for mediation.
Please feel free to contact us with any questions you may have or to discuss tailoring our
services to meet your unique needs.
Compassionate
We empathize, understand, actively listen, and respect all who communicate with our organization, staff, volunteers, and participants.
Ethical
We use sound behavior grounded in moral principles of honesty, integrity, and transparency that is clearly dilneated and provided in our information, processes, and resources.
Empowering