The use of restorative justice techniques to resolve conflicts in schools is to be continued with the Ministry of Justice, through the Restorative Justice (RJ) Branch of the Social Justice Division, and the Ministry of Education and Youth’s Safety and Security in Schools Unit (SSSU) signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on Monday, February 5.

The MoU agreement was first signed on May 3, 2022.

RP training equips staff, students and parents with conflict resolution skills, using a set of principles
working from a preventative perspective, which shows how to repair and build trusting and
respectful relationships among students, staff and parents.

Since 2022, over 12,000 participants have benefited from restorative practice training.

Minister of Justice Delroy Chuck, in his address, stated: “We have a strong and powerful tool to resolve conflict. Over the last eight years we have been able to not only train 400 facilitators, but we have sensitized thousands of persons on Restorative Justice.”

Chuck also indicated that court referrals to the RJ programme have maintained a high success rate.

“All the courts now refer matters to Restorative Justice. When a matter comes from the court, there
is a 90 per cent success rate and when a matter is referred from the community there is over 80 per
cent success rate.”

He added, “We want to sensitise as many of the classrooms in Restorative Justice and to urge the
children who know of any conflict among the students to inform a RJ Facilitator to get the pending
disputes resolved.

Minister of Education and Youth Fayval Williams confirmed that over 500 public schools will be targeted under the upcoming programme scheduled for April 2024 to March 2026. This number will account for approximately 50 per cent of the public schools across Jamaica.

Williams added: “We hope to see more stakeholders, including our deans of discipline, guidance counsellors , school nurses , health and family life educators , parents , students and the wider community come together to provide the support needed. The importance of Restorative Justice cannot be overstated and the programme remains necessary given the spate of conflicts among students.”

The RP training includes two-day workshops delivered by Restorative Justice professionals with corresponding materials shared with participants, who are subsequently certified.

The justice ministry celebrates RJ Week annually. This year, the celebrations were held from February 4 –
11, under the theme, ‘Transformation Peace and Harmony through Restorative Justice’.