The RJ Project

Youth emerging from the COVID 19 Pandemic are faced with compounding issues revolving around social and emotional regulation. This has escalated the use of expulsions and suspension in Canadian elementary schools and could lead to greater consequences later in their lives.

The Canadian education system continues to utilize punitive measure as a solution to handle occurrences within the school community. The Ontario Human Rights Commission have highlighted the negative impacts that Zero Tolerance approaches have on students and has since addressed the policy through the implementation of the new Progressive Discipline Policy. In doing so, it has led to a new practice called the “Whole School Approach” in which educators can apply progressive intervention strategies other than punitive methods. However, educators and school communities still primarily rely on punitive measures to circumvent negative actions.

Even with new policy changes and a progressive outlook on disciplinary measures, there continues to be a rise in bullying, racism, and other serious occurrences in schools. This could lead to greater negative implications such as suspensions and, expulsions, all of which could lead more students to the school to prison pipeline.

Providing youth with a toolkit for managing their emotions and resolving conflict constructively would dramatically improve these statistics, but educators simply do not have the time or resources to focus sufficient attention on teaching positive life and social skill in the classroom. 

The RJ Project will provide schools and educators the opportunity for their students to engage in an interactive video game that fosters social-emotional learning, and help students build a toolkit for conflict resolution that will promote compassion and empathy inside and outside their school community.

Our solution will use restorative practices, methods, and principles to engage students in making positive life choices. It will employ social emotional learning, conflict resolution and community actions as the foundation for learning goals.

Youth will enter the game as a character of their choosing in their school, facing challenges, conflicts, and barriers typical of and appropriate to their age and grade. They will be faced with choices resulting in either positive or negative outcomes and will learn that although they may not have all the answers or make all the right choices, they can learn from their mistakes and build a toolkit to become agents of change in their schools and communities!

The game will engage students to enter a world of learning, creation, and fun, where they will gather new tools and skills that will help them overcome barriers and challenges while making new friends along the way. As they continue to play and make better choices and decisions, they will discover the potential of their school and community, and more importantly discover how they are not victims of circumstance but have agency to create positive change.

Our solution will focus on youth starting in the primary grades of the Canadian educational system in particularly vulnerable districts in Ontario with an initial targeted focus on the Hamilton-Wentworth school board area. Hamilton has see a 39.9% rise in youth related violence and a higher rate of dropout compared to other school districts. This projected area serves 50,000 students in the public-school board with an additional 29,000 students in the Catholic school board.

Currently, young students are slowly being introduced to emotional regulations and mindfulness techniques starting in kindergarten. Although most teachers don’t have sufficient time to focus on these teachings, it is beginning to be recognized as an important skill-set. By furthering these lesson outcomes through the delivery of our proposed solution, we can broaden the positive impact that these approaches have on the health and wellbeing of students. In doing so, it will help increase classroom engagement, student development and decrease bullying, racism, and negative occurrences. Furthermore, students can take these positive outcomes and, use them effectively outside the school and implement them in their everyday lives to foster stronger communities.

We have a talented team of diverse individuals that will be able to address the needs of our clients, stakeholders, and community. On the founding team we have social work students that have firsthand field experience working with youth and using restorative practices. We also have business students that have valuable skills and knowledge in creating and implementing effective business models. Lastly, we have put together a talented creative team with skills in programming, UX/UI design, game design, and storytelling, that are using their diverse experiences in the creation of the video game.

The RJ Project team is continually meeting with potential clients within the educational sector, facilitated through our Faculty of Education at the university. We are consulting with the faculty on the content of the game and are working closely with a former school principal that has implemented restorative justice in his school. We are also meeting with leading professionals in the creative world to identify market trends and gain advice and guidance on the development of the game. Finally we are working with youth workers and restorative justice professionals to gain key insight in to the benefits of restorative practices with youth and their school communities, and how best to incorporate the lessons into the game. 

We’re applying to Solve to receive access to funding and grant opportunities as well as to access mentorship and coaching through the MIT network. We believe the mentorship and coaching will be invaluable and greatly contribute to the success of our solution, and the funding will help further develop our prototype so we can implement the project in the most vulnerable school communities as quickly as possible. 

The RJ Project is innovative in terms of the lessons being applied within the game and the focus of educational outcomes delivered through students’ achievement in the game environment. Using restorative practices as the underlying theme for the lessons creates a new approach for specific non-cognitive teachings. In the process of playing the game students will build a toolkit for dealing with situations that demonstrate positive social skills such as empathy and compassion as well as developing a mindset for how to treat everyone equitably regardless of their background or culture.

Teaching social-emotional learning and conflict resolution through a video game model generates an enriched and engaging environment that will be fun and approachable for youth to participate in. 

The RJ Project team is targeted to develop a full beta version of the game and start testing with a targeted focus group within the next year. From this we can then tailor the scope of the project to better fit the needs of the youth and implement the project in a larger area.

In five years, the RJ Project hopes to be implemented in multiple school districts in Ontario. This will provide a strong case for other districts to adopt the project across Canada and create a large data set that can demonstrate a strong example for the positive benefits of the platform.

Ultimately our goal is to promote and foster positive change within communities and create young agents of change. We seek to create a strong foundation where young individuals are more empathic and, compassionate and become positive pillars of their communities. 

We will use a three-tiered strategy to measure impact:

Short-term – levels of student engagement, improvement in classroom culture, and reduction in conflict occurrences

Medium-term – decrease in incidences of bullying, improvements in school culture, reduction in incidences of racism

Long-term – reduction in suspensions and expulsions, and reduced dropout rates

The Ontario Progressive Discipline Policy model still utilizes punitive measures for serious occurrences. Implementing alternative teaching aids and intervention strategies should be the focus for student progress and success.

Our theory of change is to implement effective intervention strategies that are continually adapting to the needs of the schools we serve, the students and community. We are committed to addressing school issues, the true needs of youth and providing a safe, diverse, and inclusive creative space and outlet.

Through our initiative, students will learn and adapt and become agents of change. Change for their school community and beyond. Students will grow to become more empathetic, compassionate and learn to use the valuable tools they will gain from the RJ Project for long-term success.  

We recognize that youth are the future of our tomorrow. The RJ Project is deeply committed to build a community that will foster positive mindsets and behavior, through the rich history of restorative practices and ideology. 

The core technology that will be incorporated into the solution would be the game platform. This includes but not limited to:

Game Development, Programming Languages, Graphic Design Software, Audio Engines, Artificial Intelligence and Random Number Generator. 

Because our solution is based on utilizing restorative practices, we are also heavily using the wisdom of Indigenous knowledge and culture. 

The foundation of the RJ Project is to incorporate diversity, equity, and inclusion on all levels, from the creation of the game itself to the foundation of our team. The video game will mirror the team members diverse background and cultural history. The game will also highlight a diverse range of characters and ensure that students from a wide range of backgrounds are respected, represented, and reflect the growing cultures in our educational sectors. Our team mirrors this philosophy and safeguards that equality and inclusivity is paramount to what we accomplish. 

The RJ Project is using a social business model.

Our key stakeholders are youth (students K-12), communities (both school and the wider community), families, and youth agencies.

Our value proposition for the key beneficiary (youth):

The RJ Project aims to teach youth the importance of emotional regulation, conflict resolution and EDI forward practices through the principals and practices rooted in restorative justice ideology. This will provide youth with a toolkit that help them navigate difficult situation in their lives and become agents of change in their communities.

Our value proposition for the main customer (schools):

The RJ Project will create greater engagement and participation from the students in the classroom, and ultimately lower occurrences leading to disciplinary action, instead keeping the students in the classroom to learn.. This will also allow the teachers to be more focused on teaching, rather than resolving conflict. Furthermore, it will generate a class culture and environment that is engaging, between students and teachers, and improve the overall school climate. 

Financial sustainability will be achieved through selling access to our platform to classrooms, schools, and school boards using a monthly or annual subscription base model based on the number of students on the platform. 

The RJ Project is still in the prototype stage of development. We have just begun applying for grants and external funding, and have yet to market test the product. Primary research indicates that there is a desire and willingness for products of this kind to be implemented within the school system. We have approached schools and have found them to be very receptive to paying for the platform on a subscription basis as there are specific line items in their budgets for this type of product and learning.