Introduction to the Peaceable Neighbourhood

In 2008 the Peaceable Neighbourhood program (PN) is implemented in Utrecht (the Netherlands). The PN follows the primary school program the Peaceable School (PS), implemented in 60% of the primary-schools in Utrecht. The PS offers an integral method to improve the social climate. The PS creates a school community in which everyone is committed and interacts positively. Pupils are given a voice and are contributing to this school-community. Explicit goals in the PS are learning democracy and ‘democratic way of life skills’ . Key characteristic of the program is conflict-management through peer-mediation: Pupils are trained to resolve problems that arise in the school. But Utrecht has neighbourhoods with a large immigrant population, in which cultural differences between the several life-domains of children are considerable. Within the schools emancipation reigns, but in their leisure time, the street-culture asks for being tough, while the home domain is often dominated by Islamic traditions. The PN program aims to tie these domains together by applying the same training to teachers and professional child workers. By implementing the Peaceable method in the leisure activities, children are treated with a consistent integral Peaceable approach, in which they are stimulated to behave in their leisure activities as they behave in the school. A challenging future goal is to include the home domain in this approach. Results reveal: • Children behave more Peaceable when they recognize the Peaceable environment. • Children value the Peaceable conflict-management protocol because they notice it works. • Child workers report a more constructive conflict-management among children coming from a PS; better communication with colleagues; better skills and more satisfaction since the implementation of PN. Professionals value the PN highly. • The PN method lets low structured child provisions ‘borrow’ this PN culture, which leads to more participation and less problems with children.