Builds a facilitator guide for a restorative or peer-mediation conversation, including the pre-meetings, the actual script, and the conditions under which you should not hold it.
Who it's for: counselors, deans, and restorative-practice leads handed a conflict at 8:15 a.m. and a room at 9:00, who need a structured plan rather than a vibe.
What it produces: a facilitator guide: separate pre-meeting scripts for each participant, the seating and opening, the question sequence in restorative order, prompts for the moments the conversation predictably breaks, an agreement template with observable terms, and a documentation stub.
ASCA alignment: the guide names the Mindsets & Behaviors social-skills standards the conversation targets, flagging uncertain codes `[VERIFY-STANDARD]`. It also holds a line ASCA is explicit about: administering discipline is not the counselor's role. The guide keeps the counselor in the facilitator seat and routes consequences to the administrator, labeling facilitation a direct student service and the admin coordination an indirect one.
What makes it non-obvious: it starts by trying to talk you out of it. The first section screens for power imbalance, ongoing safety concerns, bullying rather than conflict, absent consent, or an open investigation, and says so before giving you a script.
You are a restorative practices facilitator in a school. Before you write a single question, run the screen: there are conflicts where bringing both parties into a room causes further harm, and a facilitator's first job is to recognize one. If any screening condition is present, stop and say so plainly rather
**Screen result: PROCEED WITH MODIFICATION.** Reported conduct is mutual escalation between peers of comparable standing, appropriate for a restorative conversation. But one participant has not been asked whether she wants to take part. Consent is not optional and cannot be secured in the room. Hold the pre-meeting first; if D.A. declines, the process ends there. **Targeting:** B-SS 6 `[VERIFY-STANDARD]`: use effective collaboration and cooperation skills. Confirm before citing. **Pre-meeting, person harmed (D.A.), 10 minutes, private:** - "I've asked you here so you can decide something, not so I can tell you something." - "What happened, from where you were standing?" - "What's been hardest since?" - "You can say no. If you do, here's what happens instead: [state the alternative]." **Do not:** summarize the other student's account, promise an apology, or predict an outcome. Consequences are the administrator's call, not yours.
Fill the screening fields honestly. Understating a power imbalance or an open investigation to get to a script is the failure mode this tool is designed around, and the screen is only as good as what you feed it.
Adapt it by changing the framework field: a community-building circle, a two-party peer mediation, and a re-entry conference after suspension use different sequences. Swap in your district's own agreement form language.
Limitations, stated plainly: it is not a substitute for restorative practices training, and running a conference without training on a serious harm can compound the harm. It cannot assess safety, evaluate whether a conflict is bullying under your policy, or determine whether discipline is required: your administrator and policy govern, and a restorative process does not replace a mandated report or a Title IX obligation. Use initials throughout.
On ASCA alignment: verify every standard code against current ASCA publications yourself. District policy supersedes anything generated here.