RCT of the Restorative Practices Intervention

Overview

The Restorative Practices Intervention (RPI), is a whole school environment intervention which is integrated into existing school practice (rather than 'added on') so does not compete with academic priorities; and it has some evidence supporting its effectiveness at improving school environment and promoting positive peer relationships. The specific aims of this investigator initiated study are to: 1. Assess the mechanisms of how RPI implementation influences the school environment; 2. Assess the effects of RPI on school staff perceptions of school climate and adolescents' reports of school connectedness, peer relationships, developmental outcomes (academic achievement and social competency) and problem behaviors (alcohol use, bullying, disciplinary referrals); 3. Assess the extent to which the positive effects of RPI on adolescents persist over time during the transition between middle and high school. For the first time utilizing rigorous scientific methods, this study has the potential to document whether a whole-school intervention like RPI, that can be integrated into existing school practice, can affect both developmental outcomes and problem behaviors and whether the effects persist during the transition from middle to high school.

Young adolescence is a critical time of development. Middle school youth (ages 11-14) experience biological, social, psychological, and cognitive changes and are exposed to a variety of risk factors that are mediated through their home and school environments and adult and peer relationships. It can be a time for positive growth and development, but also for both poor developmental outcomes (defined as limited social competency and poor academic achievement) and problem behaviors, including alcohol use, bullying, and school disciplinary referrals. Many programs that are delivered in schools, unfortunately, focus only on specific negative behaviors and deficits, like poor communication and decision making skills, and label adolescents as problems in need of fixing without leveraging the strengths and resiliency of youth. While many prevention programs can be effective at reducing or preventing negative behaviors-mostly in the short term-they do not tend to improve key developmental outcomes.This is in part because these programs are usually delivered as a stand-alone curriculum inserted into the school day and do not address the whole environment of a school. Also, these programs compete for time and resources with school priorities to meet academic standards. Transitions from elementary to middle and middle to high school, place adolescents at even greater risk for engaging in problem behaviors, underscoring the need for programs in the middle school years that promote positive developmental outcomes via programming that addresses the whole school environment. Positive youth development (PYD) programs by contrast were developed to provide support, opportunities, and positive challenges for youth, to improve their developmental outcomes through leveraging youth's innate potential for positive growth and development (e.g., see articles). Comprehensive PYD programs (C-PYDs) address multiple dimensions shown to influence youth development (e.g., peers, school environment). Thus, these programs show promise in being able to mitigate negative behaviors like alcohol use and bullying, and promote developmental outcomes of social competency and academic achievement. One C-PYD, the Restorative Practices Intervention (RPI), shows particular promise because it is a two-year, whole school environment intervention which is integrated into existing school practice (rather than 'added on') so does not compete with academic priorities; it is grounded in a strong theoretical basis (psychology of affect theory and ecological systems theory); and it has quasi-experimental evidence supporting its effectiveness at improving school environment and promoting positive peer relationships. Despite this evidence, questions remain about the exact mechanisms by which the results were achieved and whether results persist. Thus, more rigorous research is needed to assess RPI's impacts on academic achievement, social competencies, and problem behaviors; and the underlying program mechanisms that achieve positive outcomes across these areas. To improve the science of C-PYD evaluation, the goal for this 5-year study is to conduct a longitudinal randomized controlled trial of RPI in 16 schools to assess whether it impacts youth problem behaviors AND developmental outcomes. The study would be conducted under PA-08-241: Reducing Risk Behaviors by Promoting Positive Youth Development. The specific aims of this investigator initiated R01 are to: 1. Assess the mechanisms of how RPI implementation influences the school environment; 2. Assess the effects of RPI on school staff perceptions of school climate and adolescents' reports of school connectedness, peer relationships, developmental outcomes (academic achievement and social competency) and problem behaviors (alcohol use, bullying, disciplinary referrals); 3. Assess the extent to which the positive effects of RPI on adolescents persist over time during the transition between middle and high school. For the first time utilizing rigorous scientific methods, this study has the potential to document whether a C-PYD like RPI, that can be integrated into existing school practice, can affect both developmental outcomes and problem behaviors and whether the effects persist during the transition from middle to high school. This information is critical as states are cutting funding to implement typical, stand-alone prevention programs and limiting the amount of time spent on non-academic prevention programs. This study will determine whether efficiencies can be gained by implementing C-PYD programs that have the potential to influence multiple outcome areas by influencing adolescents' developmental trajectory. As such, the study proposed here will impact the on-going debate about how to maximize federal/state resources devoted to middle school programming, and minimize the competition in-school prevention programs usually face with academic offerings. Findings also have the potential to advance the theory of PYD by empirically validating for the first time that restorative principles based on psychology of affect theory can be applied as an approach to promote PYD targeting a school environment.