Ep 73: Becoming a Trauma-Informed Restorative Educator

Regulated & Relational

In this Episode, Julie interviews Joe Brummer and Marg Thorsborne about their new book, Becoming a Trauma-Informed Restorative Educator.

Both Joe and Marg have years of experience and are experts in the field of restorative justice.

Marg talks about how we can move away from punishment and the harm of behaviorism, and encourages us to look at how to build lagging skills and view behaviors through a lens of can’t vs won’t. She says that punishment doesn’t have the capacity to teach a skill that is missing.

Joe tells us that restorative justice is a community-building program vs. discipline program and goes on to say that RJ is any practice that builds, maintains, and repairs relationships. It’s going upstream and creating a school climate that doesn’t create negative behaviors - when we focus on relationships and see the value of every student because they aren’t disposable.

It’s a way of being that says to the student, “We will love you, we will help you clean up your mess, and repair your mistakes”. Accountability is there. There are consequences, And it requires system change because the system helps them make the change. It’s a paradigm shift.

Marg reminds us that we are wired to be connected and redemption is important for our healing.

Listen in as Julie interviews Marg and Joe and dives into the why behind their new book that will lead to a systems change starting with the creation of restorative educators.

Pre-order this book now - released June 21, 2024:

Jessica Kingsley Publishing

Amazon