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 Can Schools/Administrators Do?

All staff at a school should be aware of what steps are necessary to help prevent and stop bullying. As a first step, school staff should be aware of the purposes bullying may serve for the children who bully. These include:ref

• Attention, recognition, prestige, or acceptance in a peer group. (Creating a climate that does not tolerate bullying removes the social power of bullies.)
• Access to an activity or item. Some students use bullying as an excuse to get what they want (e.g., extortion, intimidation).
• A lack of understanding of social, cultural, psychological, or physical differences.

Planning for Safe Schools

A safe school is the result of careful planning and research, and a thorough understanding of the school's environment and community is critical to its success. Many schools have found it helpful to begin by creating an antibullying planning worksheet to ensure all avenues have been considered. This multisystem approach sends a clear and consistent message to bullies and victims alike that bullies are not in charge and all children deserve to be safe.ref

The Olweus Bullying Prevention Program created by Dan Olweus has been identified as one of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's Model Programs (http://modelprograms.samhsa.gov/) as well as one of 10 model violence prevention programs by the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence (www.cspv.org). The core elements for school-level interventions in this program include:ref^, ref

• Assessing school needs and goals by using an anonymous questionnaire to poll the student body on the nature and extent of bullying problems
• Forming a bullying prevention coordinating committee
• Providing in-service days for teachers to review findings of the questionnaire, discuss the problem, and plan the prevention efforts
• Holding school-wide events to launch the program and incorporating antibullying themes and activities into the curriculum
• Increasing supervision in areas that are known "hotspots" for bullying, including the cafeteria and playground
• Developing school-wide rules and consistent consequences for violations against bullying
• Developing a system to reinforce positive behaviors
• Holding staff discussion groups to enhance understanding and motivation
• Involving parents in school activities and ensuring parents and schools are aware of available resources in the community

The Olweus program also involves class-level interventions (e.g., class meetings about bullying) and individual-level interventions.

The Maine Project Against Bullying has designed a tool called the Grade 3 Survey. This survey was given at 165 schools in Maine to establish some baseline data on bullying in that state. Counselors can adapt this survey to help assess the bullying problem at their particular school, or it can be used at multiple schools in a given county to provide a broader picture of the problem.

The purpose of the survey is to help school teams make a brief assessment about:

• The nature and extent of bullying
• How children have reacted to bullying and what the consequences have been (in terms of their feelings of safety and well-being)
• Whether they have informed others, and if so, what were the outcomes?
• Students' perceptions of their own aggressive behaviors at school
• Gender differences in all of the above

Choosing the correct bullying prevention program for a particular school can be confusing and overwhelming. Olweus's Bullying Prevention Program has been incorporated into many school systems nationwide. However, other programs may better fit the needs of a particular school. Schools can start the process of choosing a bullying prevention program by asking the right questions.

A condensed version of this page is available as a Fact Sheet in HTML and PDF formats.