Understanding the intersecting core tenets of trauma-informed care and restorative justice

Schools are implementing both Restorative Justice (RJ) and Trauma-Informed Care (TI-C) initiatives to promote a positive school culture and to decrease gender and race disparities in discipline referrals. Typically, schools implement these types of initiatives with little understanding about the degree to which they are guided by similar or dissimilar approaches to addressing student behavior. In fact, there is little research to inform schools about the possibly shared central tenets of RJ and TI-C. Two studies in this dissertation addressed the need for research in this area. Study 1 used semi-structured interviews to examine if school staff members (n = 14) identified common elements of RJ and TI-C as honoring student voice, fostering a sense of community, and repairing harm. Results suggested that a handful of staff members were not knowledgeable or able to describe TI-C. However, the majority of staff members who were able to describe both initiatives identified the central tenets of RJ and TI-C as similar. These results suggest that there are overlapping approaches of each initiative, indicating that RJ and TI-C could be better integrated in future training, school policy and procedures. Study 2 furthered research on one of the overlapping tenets of RJ and TI-C, honoring student voice. Using self-report measures, Study 2 addressed whether staff with more or less authoritarian attitudes were open to honoring student voice compared to other staff (n = 124). The results of Study 2 indicated that overall authoritarian attitudes were not significantly correlated with honoring student voice. The majority of staff reported that they sometimes honored student voice. This held no matter their attitudes about authority and discipline in school. Future directions and implications for the overlaps of TI-C and RJ are discussed.Psy.D.Includes bibliographical referencesby Neela Karikehall