Restorative Practice: Developing a Community of Storytellers

Abstract

ABSTRACT The interruption of the school-to-prison pipeline has had a greater presence in many educational policies across the nation, many of these outlining Restorative Justice as a step toward the deconstruction of that system. In looking at policy asks, a question comes up as to how a culture change can be funded that can allow restorative practices to thrive in communities. The practice of storytelling sets valuable foundations for how restorative practices can thrive in groups on a microlevel while moving communities at-large toward potentials of social transformation. By examining transformational justice and the deconstruction of anti-Blackness in communities, best practices that form storytelling development, and their relationship to the current state of identity politics, we can find new ways to see restorative practices and their ability to grow within communities.