Comprehensive Programs As a foundation, a comprehensive, school-wide approach is essential to addressing school bullying (Aluedse, 2006). Such an approach requires collaboration among all stakeholders including students, teachers, counselors, administration, and parents, creating a shared sense of investment and ownership (Austin et al., 2012). Rather than simple modification to existing character education lessons, a comprehensive approach addresses systemic change and individual interventions.
Cunningham and Whitten (2007) discussed the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program, a whole-school prevention program widely implemented and researched. Encompassing the whole school, the program contains school-wide, classroom, and individualized components. The program’s objectives include increasing awareness and problem assessment, environmental/ school climate strategies, classroom-focused strategies, and individual interventions. Extensive research indicates positive results in decreasing bullying and victimization. The authors also mention the importance of program monitoring and assessment to ensure thorough and comprehensive implementation. Comprehensive approaches, like the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program, are foundational to ensuring the protection and safety of students to facilitate academic, social, and career development.
As a component of comprehensive approaches, diverse individual interventions should be considered (Cunningham & Whitten, 2007). Rayle et al. (2007)
Teacher and parent awareness is one of main obstacles in preventing bullying prevention. Teachers and parents do not take bullying as being serious and underestimate the effects it has on children (Cohen, 2008). It is reported that 85% of teachers think they intervene to stop bullying, however only 35% of students feel that teachers do (Cohen, 2008). Many parents and teachers do not have the proper knowledge on what establishes bullying. They see bullying as only being violence and ignore the verbal assaults that are occurring (Cohen, 2008). They do not know the signs to look for and have not been properly trained on how to resolve the issue (Cohen, 2008).
In order to stop the relentless bullying of their students, many schools are implementing bullying awareness programs for students, and the community, to
The Olweus Bullying Prevention Program is a school-based and research-based program that prevents bullying in all forms and addresses other inappropriate behavior among children in our community. This program has been implemented in elementary and middle schools throughout **** County such as ****. This program is currently funded by the **** County Drug & Alcohol Commission, Inc. and a grant from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency. The grants that have been obtained are currently funding training at the 6 involved schools for administrative staff and classroom teachers. Presently, the needs for training materials and incentives for students and staff are under met.
Source: McNamee, Abigail, and Mia Mercurio. "School-Wide Intervention in the Childhood Bullying Triangle." Childhood Education 5(2008):370. eLibrary. Web. 02 Feb. 2016.
Students who are victims of bullying force themselves out of bed every morning with an overwhelming sense of despair because they know one foot stepped inside the institution interprets into a new day and a new game for the oppressor. Even though there has been a nationwide policy adopted by many Institutions in the efforts of putting a stop to bullying, many victims stay unnoticed due to failure of acknowledgment, failure of anti-bullying programs, and failure of catching early discerning behavior. Nonetheless, Bullying has gotten to be such an overused word that those who are in dire need of assistance aren’t receiving the attention needed to eliminate the issue from the start, however, there are solutions that could solve the epidemic
One of the easiest ways in order to eliminate the frequency of bullying would be to implement very strong anti-bullying programs in schools, this is the place where many children spend most of their days aside from home, these programs should be effective on a various amount of cases. Michael Morrow did research on elementary school anti-bullying programs and wrote the article “Consultation in Bullying Prevention: An Elementary School Case Study.” This article looked at the various research that has been done on anti-bullying programs and the papers that have been written about it. “Multiple prevention programs have been developed and utilized around the world to address bullying in schools and many employ a schoolwide or whole-community approach. While these programs share similar features, they also vary in numerous ways, most notably in their specific components” (Morrow, 2015, p. 87). There are programs that are implemented that may
Article overview: In their article, "School Leadership And Counselors Working Together To Address Bullying" (Austin, Reynolds, Barnes, 2012), argues that school policies concerning bullying must be implemented by school administration in order to eliminate the effects that bullying has on students in a learning environment. Since school counselors have the professional skills and knowledge developed from their college training, they should apply these skills by taking a leadership role in implementing intervention bullying programs, and work together with school administrators, teachers,
Bullying and cyber-bullying, gangs and gang killing and school shooting are at an all-time high in America. Character programs will give affordable character education solutions in schools. Character Education Curricula, Educator Training, and In-Services, and Anti-Bullying School Rallies will help sustain some of the problems young people of facing today. In Character Education, I believe there is hope, our students and school need a better resolution rather than reporting bullying, instead, have solutions that need more than
Relational bullying prevents a child from being involved or accepted by their peers (Kasier & Raminsky, 2012). This type of bullying occurs among both boys and girls; however it is more common amongst girls. The goal of Whole School Approach or No Blame Approach is to take the focus off the bullying by getting everyone involved and focus more on creating a positive environment (Kasier & Raminsky, 2012). This requires the school to take on the challenge of anti-bullying policy. Setting up clear expectations or rules for children about respecting individual rights these rules should include bystanders and
As the most well-known anti-bullying program, the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program (OBPP) seems to be an effective program (“Olweus Bullying Prevention Program: Scope And Sequence”). However the effectiveness of this program is uncertain in many countries except in Norway (Simmons). A study even found that OBPP had no effect in general in preventing bullying in American schools (Simmons). Moreover, huge resources are required since OBPP is “used at the school, classroom, and individual levels and includes methods to reach out to parents and the community for involvement and support” (“Olweus Bullying Prevention Program: Scope And Sequence”). A school with limited staff and resources may find it hard to introduce and implement this whole-school program across several levels. Instead, “an on-the-ground, local approach with individual students rather than a broad , mandated program” should be recommended (Simmons). It is important to offer bullied students available and trusted channels to seek help from. From my experience, I was bullied once by a senior student in high school, and I felt embarrassed to talk to my parents about it. Parents should be encouraged to discuss the concept of bullying freely with their children, so that bullied kids do not feel afraid or embarrassed about reporting. Moreover, Students should know who and where to seek help from in school. For example, a teacher can be appointed to be the main contact person about reporting bullying. Furthermore, the program should consist of regular meetings and seminars that educate students, teachers and parents about the implementation of this
To prevent future reports of bullying among school children high-level intervention programs are needed to help change the atmosphere in schools and to provide the appropriate training for school administrators and teachers. High intervention program can reduce bullying when there is active participation from school administrators, teachers and parents who can identify and prevent situations that can lead to bullying. Having a strong anti-bullying prevention programs in the school systems allow the school’s administration to set the tone that bullying will not be tolerated and to build relationships with the students to let them know that their safety is the number one concern. For bullying prevention programs to be successful the intervention
In terms of self-nominations and peer-nominations of bullying, 35% of participants were found to be victims, 11% were found to be bullies, and 5% were found to be bullies and victims. Bullying appeared to occur very frequently during the two weeks prior to the survey with frequent observations of physical bullying as well as verbal bullying, relational bullying, and attacks on others’ property. Also, the frequency of bullying failed to significantly change after the implementation of Bullyproof. Furthermore, most students reported attitudes against bullying during the pretest. While 80% of participants either agreed or strongly agreed that helping victims of bullying is necessary, 28% agreed or strongly agreed that victims essentially bring bullying on themselves. Less than half of students in the sample agreed/strongly agreed that they could impact bullying in their classroom. In addition, results showed a general rise in perceived power and anti-bullying attitudes. The most significant increase took place among female participants and fifth graders. Also, the program evaluation results showed that, on a scale of 0-30, the effectiveness averaged 18.99 with a standard deviation of
Creating An Anti-Bullying Culture In Secondary Schools: Characterists to Consider When Constructing Appropriate Anti-Bullying Programs.
There are many interventions and techniques to combat bullying in school and outside of school. One of the ways to prevent bullying is to increase awareness of the bully and victim problem throughout the schools. Dan Olweus created a bully intervention program, which included the increase of awareness of the bully and victim problem and enhancing knowledge about it. Olweus said, “Use of the Bully/Victim Questionnaire for an anonymous survey is an important step in obtaining more specific knowledge about the frequency and nature of the problems in a particular school.”(Olweus, 1997) Schools can use this technique as a way to find out if a specific student or student population is at risk to being the bully or the targeted victims. This would
School bullying and bullying as a whole has become a growing concern. The need for more intervention is more recognized, as incidents of bullying and inappropriate acts towards others occur in places outside of the classroom. This literature takes a closer look at bullying in schools. Olwesus (2013) states “the field of bullying research is to some extent plagued by problems, disagreements, and unresolved issues” (p.752). Whether if anyone will agree on the root of bullying, the fact remains that bullying has to be examined at its very core to remedy the matter before it becomes a bigger concern. There is a dire need for intervention based programs to be set in place to address the fact the act of bullying has lasting effects on the bully and the victim. When intervention programs are put into place to address bullying, the act of bullying decreases due to the gained understanding of the effects.