About the Practitioner
Sue is an educator of classroom teachers and trains them in how to use a restorative approach in dealing with conflict behaviour.
There are two major aspects to this training. One is Circle Work, a proactive approach to developing relationships in the classroom by building trust and connectedness while helping children to feel a sense of belonging. This process is also able to be used to problem solve collectively in a group setting.
The other aspect of the training is Restorative Chat, a tool which utilises open ended questions to solve conflict and to help children to build conflict competency.
As with many who work in the education area, Sue's conversion to the principles of Restorative Practice came through the training she undertook with Marg Thorsborne.
When working in the behaviour support team, the primary way of dealing with children was the behaviourist approach, and schools used punitive measures that Sue believed not only didn't work, but were more often than not, causing more harm.
After meeting Marg, Sue realised that the Restorative Practice approach was far more productive and produced better and more sustainable outcomes.
Sue has more than 40 years of experience in the education field. Initially working as a classroom teacher before becoming the Principal Advisor for positive behaviour approaches in the Sunshine Coast region of the Queensland Education Department, and more latterly, in her own business, where she works with the leadership team in schools in assisting them to implement Restorative Practice based programs.
Sue believes that her many years of practical experience in developing and implementing a positive behaviour approach to working in classrooms, enables her to help teachers understand that a Restorative approach is more than 'just another teaching tool'
Organisation
- CEO
- Consultancy
- Culture change
- Leadership development
- Policy development
- Program development
- Reflective practice
- Restorative Circles
- Restorative Conferencing
- Restorative Practice meetings
- School - K-12
- Team Building
- Training