Michelle Stowe, Ireland
Michelle is an educator at heart, and now works as a restorative practitioner, trainer, researcher and consultant. In her role as the director of Connect RP, she mainly supports schools in growing a restorative culture that puts people and relationships at the heart of a learning community. She taught English and Spanish at second level for 16 years and is currently lecturing trainee teachers on the Professional Masters in Education (PME) programme in Maynooth University. She facilitates continuing professional development courses for teachers in Education Centres throughout the country. She supports schools in co-creating a relational school community through partnerships amongst schools, mentoring internal distributed leadership teams, and her online UBUNTU Learning Platform which enables a school to bring RP to all its stakeholders. Check out her TEDx for an introduction to her work.
Nancy Riestenberg, USA
Nancy Riestenberg has over forty years of experience in the fields of violence prevention education, child sexual abuse prevention, and restorative measures in schools. She has worked with school districts in Minnesota and thirty other states, from the Cass Lake-Bena School District in Minnesota to Los Angeles Unified School District. She is the author of Circle in the Square: Building Community and Repairing Harm in Schools. With Marg Thorsborne and Gilliam McCluskey, she co-edited and contributed to Getting More Out of Restorative Practices in Schools. As Restorative Practices Specialist for the Minnesota Department of Education, she provides technical assistance on violence and bullying prevention, school connectedness, school climate, dropout prevention, cultural relevance in prevention education, crisis prevention and recovery, and restorative measures. She has also provided technical assistance in restoring the learning environment to the Minnesota school districts that experienced high levels of trauma.
