Making Restorative Justice Accessible for children with Speech Language and Communication Needs

​When I was 18, my A-Level English Literature teacher, Mr Andrews, met me as I left the exam hall. He seemed furious.

“Did you answer question 2?”, he barked.
“No”, I replied.
“Why not?” he asked.
“I didn’t understand what juxtapose meant Sir.”
“It means compare!” he roared.
“Oh! I could have answered that”, I replied. 

He pulled his hair in frustration, roared again and stomped off up the corridor, as only a man of 6ft 3inches and built like the side of a brick outhouse can do.  I'm fairly certain that he stomped off to write a strongly and probably colourfully worded) letter to the examination board on the fact we were sitting an English Literature exam, not a vocabulary one.  

My point is this.  Communication, whether written or verbal, is only possible if it is accessible. If I'm honest, my desire to make restorative practices accessible to children with speech language and communication needs only really came to the fore when my own son was diagnosed with Autism.  Inspired by the fear that he would be a misunderstood child, labelled "badly behaved" and dealt with through ever punitive ways, when really he was confused and anxious and didn't know how to tell others, led me to create and develop visual tools to communicate with children in the restorative justice process.

There are four areas to consider when translating the narrative to the visual.  

​First, consider your audience.  
Bryan et al (2007)1 , Crew and Ellis (2008)2 , Gregory & Bryan (2009)3 , and more recently Brooks (2011) have all researched the prevalence of Speech Language and Communication Needs (SLCN) in children in the youth justice system in the United Kingdom (UK). They found evidence of anywhere between 65 – 91% of SLCN evident in those studies.  At even the most conservative estimate, it is fair to say there is an over-representation of children with SLCN in the UK’s youth justice system.  If we do not develop innovative methods to communicate with children about, and within restorative justice, the message sent, may not be received. This risks children refusing to participate, or participating with anxiety, which can look like they don't give a stuff.  Whether you want to accept it or not, these are the children you are most likely working with, you cannot ignore these statistics and the challenge to engage these children belongs to you, to me, to all of us.

Second, consider the message you want to convey.  
You generally want to convey five messages in explaining what restorative justice is to children.  Adults, often, in our need to feel important, to look intelligent and capable use complicated language which is unhelpful and isolating.   Do these phrases look familiar?

---

Professional Jargon

Restorative Conference


Preparation



Perspective


Non Compliance / Reconvened Conference


​​Breach of Court Order

Human Being Friendly

The chance to meet the people who were hurt, put things right and try not to do it again.

I will help you know what to say, when to say it and who to say it to, before you go into the room.

Everyone's story will be different and that is O.K.

If you break your promises you will have to explain why at another meeting.

If you keep breaking your promise without any good reason, you could end up being in more trouble and possibly even back in court.

In fact I remember a Principal Sheriff in a Court in Scotland calling me out on this very issue of using jargon to make myself feel clever.  I had written in a sentencing report that the man in question had an offending history which was analogous with the index offence.  He laughed, called me up to the bench, and told me if I could pronounce the word correctly, never mind explain it to the gentleman being sentenced he would happily accept the report.  I stammered and stuttered my way through an explanation - but lesson learned.  As I left his bench he gave me a piece of sage advice - "people want to understand - don't make it more difficult than it needs to be."
​

Next, consider the medium you use.  
​I advocate the use of visuals in both preparation for and facilitation of the conference.  This increases the likelihood of being understood because there is an additional clue – the picture.

Visual representations can be things like:

Cartooning 
Simple stick men are very acceptable and usually within the skill set of most people - if not - feel free to get creative whilst preparing children for the process - cut faces out of magazines, use emoji's, (kids love stuff like this).  

Pictures of body parts
To identify feelings (stomach, heart, lungs, expression, gritted teeth, clenched hands, running feet, speech bubbles and thinking clouds).  

Graduated colour wheels
Make intensity of emotions and feelings accessible.

Likert Scales
Also good for intensity and are great to show the rise and fall of emotions.

Emoticon faces
For typical responses help the reciprocal communication of feelings in the moment.  

I've used see-saws to show how a child's personal resources can be used to balance out victim needs, the list goes on.  

With a bit of creativity and very little artistic talent required you can translate words to pictures for any child.  

Lastly, consider the process.  
Asking children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) to sit still and communicate for an extended period of time is unlikely to result in a positive outcome. Similarly, expecting children who have SLCN to focus on thinking sequentially about their behaviour and the impact of it on others, is unrealistic.

Children can be supported to overcome this challenge by arranging the process visually from left to right in the room the meeting takes place.

The Timetable
At the left is the timetable drawn out in pictures.
1) Saying hello and who you are;
2) Ground rules explained;
3) Police facts;
4) Child’s Story;
5) Victim's Story; 
6) What do we all do now?;
7) Thanks and close.  

Moving around the room, each of these parts of the meeting are displayed from left to right, in the visuals the child and victim prepared with the facilitator in the weeks before the meeting.

It ends with a blank page where the promises are to be drawn. For children with ADHD this visual movement around the room is a particular gift. They can get up and move around the room; following the process, explaining their story, drawing up harm or sticking on emotion faces at different stages of the victim’s story.

This keeps them participating and active enough that their focus and concentration can remain "on task".

Creatively translating the above four areas from verbal language to visual representation for children will increase the likelihood of engaging them in a restorative conversation, regardless of their communication capability, securing more positive outcomes for all.

References: 

​Bryan K, Freer J, Furlong C. Language and communication difficulties in juvenile offenders. International Journal of language and communication difficulties, 2007; 42, 505-520.

Crew M, Ellis N. Speech and Language Therapy within Bradford Youth Offending Team, 2008.

Gregory J, Bryan K. Evaluation of the Leeds Speech and Language Therapy Service Provision within the Intensive Supervision and Surveillance Programme provided by the Leeds Youth Offending Team, 2009.

Brooks V, (2011) Report outlining the findings of a 13 month pilot project examining the effectiveness of speech and language therapy for young people known to Exeter, East and Mid Devon Youth Offending Team.