“…do not let the sun set on your anger…”

Ephesians 4:26

Relationships involve people and at times these relationships break down. When this happens we use a pastoral care approach to restoring relationships.

The Restoring Relationships process is used to address challenging behaviours and conflict situations. Dealing with challenging behaviours and conflict situations in a restorative way rather than through a punitive process promotes wellbeing and resilience. The Restoring Relationships process assists the person who has caused the relationship to break down to accept responsibility for their actions and to recognise the negative impact their behaviour has had. It also helps everyone who was involved to have an authentic voice in the restorative process and state the effect the challenging behaviour had on them. Acceptance and ownership of behaviour, seeking reconciliation and forgiving with the goal of restoring relationships, letting go and moving forward are key parts of the process.

The Restoring Relationships process supports Jesus’ message of love and forgiveness which is the foundation of our Catholic understanding of the importance of seeking and giving forgiveness in conflict situations and helps both parties to move forward from what happened in a positive way so that the relationship can be repaired and they are more inclined to ‘let go’ of the hurt and anger that resulted from the negative incident rather than let the anger continue to build up. Students are asked:

“What happened?” “Who was affected?” “What needs to happen to make things right?”