About the Practitioner
Tiffany has worked in the education field for more than 20 years and realised early in her career, that in order to overcome systemic barriers, Restorative Practice processes were the way to go and has done a great deal of study in the area over that time.
Tiffany has used RP throughout her career. As a classroom teacher, in middle management and now in her senior management role, where she encourages staff to take an RP approach to all of the circumstances they encounter on a daily basis.
It is not always easy, and many teachers don't readily accept that RP produces better results than traditional punitive approaches.
For many experienced classroom teaches it takes significant upskilling, Personal Development and one to one mentoring, to develop the mindset that is necessary for those teachers to understand the benefits of the Restorative Practice approach.
Tiffany believes that RP is the only way to achieve long-term sustainable change, although it's a continually evolving process along a continuum.
Tiffany has been at Namadgi School for five years. When she arrived the school was not considered safe by the community and her priority was to build positive learning partnerships with the community and to make the school safe.
The catchment area has the highest indigenous population in the ACT and also has a high proportion of low socioeconomic families and single parent families.
Tiffany based all relationship building practices and behaviour management systems on Restorative Practice processes at the school with Trauma Informed Practice playing a significant role.
A key to turning the culture of the school around was working in partnership with families using restorative approaches.
The school is now safe, the children are learning, the school leadership team are focusing on improving the learning growth and outcome for each individual student at the school.
Organisation
- Deputy Principal
- School
- Advocacy
- Community Development/Education
- Culture change
- Group based relationship education
- Leadership development
- Peer support services
- Reflective practice
- Restorative Circles
- Restorative Conferencing
- Restorative Practice meetings
- School - K-12
- Team Building