The Canadian Government-funded project Improved Access to Justice in the Caribbean (IMPACT Justice) hosted a meeting on Saturday, September 9th, 2017, at the University of the West Indies’ Cave Hill Campus, Barbados at which the decision was taken to form a Barbados Restorative Practices Association.
The meeting was attended by educators who had received IMPACT Justice-sponsored training in restorative practices and who had expressed an interest in forming an association.
The officers of the Interim Executive Committee of the Association are: Ken Layne (President), the Deputy Principal of the Daryll Jordan Secondary School; Dr. Patricia Saul (Vice President) the Deputy Principal of Erdiston Teachers’ Training College; and. Julia Edey (Secretary), the Guidance Counsellor at Parkinson Memorial Secondary School.
The floor members of the Interim Executive Committee are: Patricia Warner, Senior Education Officer, Ministry of Education, Science, Technology & Innovation; Coleen Gilkes-Collymore, Director of the New Horizons Academy; Henderson Nurse, Tutor at Erdiston Teachers’ Training College; and Nkwa Daniel, a School Attendance Officer in the Ministry of Education, Science, Technology and Innovation.
IMPACT Justice focuses on Restorative Practices as an Alternative Dispute mechanism which is being used in schools worldwide to solve disciplinary and other problems. Professor Velma Newton, the Regional Director of IMPACT Justice stated at the meeting, that since 2015 the Project has trained over 200 Barbadian educators in Restorative Practices and she expressed great satisfaction at the extent to it is being used in schools across the island. She also praised Minister of Education Hon. Ronald Jones and Senior Education Officer Patricia Warner, who had embraced the programme from the beginning and provided the leadership needed to ensure that it would take root in the educational system of Barbados.
Prof. Newton noted that the ultimate objective is the formation of a Caribbean-wide Restorative Practices Association.
