Why are some school-based restorative conferences not implemented?

= 714) culminated in restorative conferences with 40% never reaching completion. The most common reasons for noncompletion were that participants refused to proceed or facilitators deemed it not appropriate to bring the parties together. Further, more serious incidents of threat, assault, and student/staff conflict were less likely to result in a completed conference than more minor incidents. Given the need for equitable access to fully implemented conferences, sociodemographic characteristics of enrolled students were also examined as predictors of conference noncompletion. Compared to the conference-level predictors, there was a relatively weaker association between school demographic variables and conference noncompletion. Implications for addressing challenges that arise during the pathway from referral to completed restorative conference are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).