CONTENTS

About This Course

Table of Contents

1. School Bullying: What It Is and Why It Hurts
2. The Role of Bullies, Victims, and Witnesses
3. Factors Contributing to Bullying and Violence
4. Screening and Assessment
5. Treatment For Children and Adolescents
6. Prevention and Intervention
7. Legal and Ethical Issues

Supplements
Case Studies
Fact Sheets
References
Resources

The ABCs of Bullying
Addressing, Blocking, and Curbing School Aggression

What Makes Resilience?

The capacity to withstand hardship requires several strengths. These include:ref

• Insight: learning how things and people work
• Independence: knowing when a relationship is unhealthy and how to set boundaries
• Relationships: learning how to make and maintain healthy relationships
• Initiative: generating constructive activities and creatively solving problems
• Creativity and humor: using creativity and humor to express complex emotions or to reduce tension
• Morality: knowing right from wrong and standing up for those beliefs

Developmental Assets

The Search Institute, which supports practical research for healthy development, has identified 40 developmental "assets" that can help build resiliency in an individual, children, groups of children, and communities. The Institute has surveyed more than 2 million youth across the United States and Canada since 1989 and found a "strong and consistent relationship between the number of assets present in young people's lives and the degree to which they develop in positive and healthful ways".ref

Some of the assets may be manifested externally in the family or community. These external assets include:

• Family and community support;
• Caring adult relationships;
• The setting of boundaries and expectations; and
• Constructive use of time.

Other assets are present internally, including:

• Having an enjoyment of learning;
• Reading for pleasure;
• Having positive values and a caring attitude;
• Having a sense of equality and social justice;
• Having a healthy lifestyle and healthy attitude toward sex; and
• Possessing social competencies and having a positive identity.

The fewer assets a youth has, the more likely he or she is to engage in risky behaviors. A Search Institute survey conducted during the 1999-2000 school year of more than 200,000 youth in grades 6-12 in more than 300 communities across the United States found that young people from all racial/ethnic groups who engaged in high-risk behaviors reported, on average, only six to nine of the 40 developmental assets. The same survey found that youth who did not engage in high-risk behaviors, had, on average, 23 or 24 assets.

Clearly, there is a need for what the Search Institute calls "asset-building." The Search Institute found that overall, the average youth in grades 6-12 has fewer than 20 of the 40 assets. Most successful programs to address school violence and bullying aim to build protective assets among children and youth so that they can develop in positive and healthful ways.

Understanding the role protective factors play in school violence does not preclude addressing systemic problems that contribute to school violence, such as poverty, drugs, and crime. Notwithstanding the need to help individual students at risk, addressing the causes of bullying and school violence also requires a consideration of the broader public policy issues present in the home, school, and community.