Pair bring justice to school of hard knocks

In the past five years not a single student has been expelled from a school which gets its pupils from some of the toughest, most impoverished communities in the country.

There are two main reasons for this incredible record: two self-described "scruffy fellas", Conway Matthews and Phil Skipworth, community liaison officers at Porirua College in Wellington.

Mr Skipworth has been working one-on-one with troubled students since 1999, liaising between the young people, their families, the schools, Child, Youth and Family and, in some cases, the police and the courts.

When he became a victim of his own success and found he had too much work to handle, he was joined by Mr Matthews, who also had a lot of experience working with youth in the community.

Their work is funded through the Achievement in Multi-Cultural High Schools Programme.

For the past five years, they have been developing their own "restorative justice" programme in the school with the support of management and the board of trustees.

Restorative justice has its roots in the criminal justice system, and involves offenders facing up to their victims.

Mr Matthews says to his knowledge Porirua College is the first school in the country to implement an in-house restorative justice programme.

Over the past five years 60 students, who would normally have faced expulsion, have taken part in the programme.

Their "crimes" range from bullying to theft and burglary, drugs and arson.

By coming face-to-face with the people they have hurt, the young offenders come to realise the real significance of their actions, Mr Matthews says.

"You can wag your finger at someone and say, 'You are rubbish', all you like, but if you don't explain why their behaviour is wrong it's pointless," he says.

"Often these kids don't really understand what the big deal is.

"It's like, 'You've got your wallet back, what are you upset about?'

"But when they have to sit and listen to how their action has affected someone mentally, that brings it home for them."

It also gives victims an understanding of where their aggressors are coming from, he says.

"If you've got a kid who is being smacked around by his dad, or is having to live in a house where gang members are coming and going and doing drugs all around him, where is he going to take out his sadness and anger? At school."

The important difference with the formal legal system is that the young people have more input, he says.

"With restorative justice, the offender tells the story from their point of view."

- NZPA