What Can Schools Do to Help?
There are so many things that the teachers, administrators, and staff of schools can do to help decrease the prevalence of bullying. It is absolutely essential that every school have a bullying prevention policy in place and that everyone in the school (even the students) are educated about what the policy states. The topic of bullying and the school rules pertaining to bullying need to be taught explicitly to students, preferably more than one time each year.
Bullying Prevention Policies/Programs
When asked about their school's bullying policy, many teachers and administrators respond with, "Our school has a zero tolerance policy." While zero tolerance policies are extremely popular, they are NOT the best option. Here is why: Zero tolerance policies brush incidents of bullying under the rug. The bully is reprimanded and punished and told never to do it again. This is often ineffective because the child was never taught why his or her actions were wrong or how to change his or her behavior. So, while zero tolerance policies sound like a fantastic idea, research indicates that they do NOT reduce problems associated with bullying.
Bullying prevention programs are hard to implement because of the nature of bullying. Strategies such as conflict resolution, peer mediation strategies, and group therapy are often have little effect on bullies because their behavior is a result of power imbalance as opposed to social skill deficits. The following are some tips you can follow to make the bullying prevention program/policy at your school more effective:
Bullying prevention programs are hard to implement because of the nature of bullying. Strategies such as conflict resolution, peer mediation strategies, and group therapy are often have little effect on bullies because their behavior is a result of power imbalance as opposed to social skill deficits. The following are some tips you can follow to make the bullying prevention program/policy at your school more effective:
- Instead of focusing on individual students (like zero tolerance policies), strategies must work to change the overall culture and climate of the entire school.
- Programs must be carried all the way out by ALL staff in the school and across the district so students have consistency.
- Programs need to start in elementary school because bullying young is the antecedent to more violent behaviors in later grades.
- Bullying prevention should be integrated into the curriculum.
The Olweus Bullying Prevention Program
Perhaps one of the most well researched bully prevention programs is the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program. Created by Dr. Dan Olweus of Norway, this program has been proven over and over again to reduce incidents of bullying and other anti-social behaviors by huge percentages in multiple schools around the world. It includes interventions at three levels (school-wide, classroom, individual) and also has strategies that involve the entire community. It is a cost effective program that does require teacher and staff training but has results that make the time spent training well worth it. Please take the time to watch the video about the Olweus program below. The first five minutes are an introduction with the second half of the video actually describing the Olweus program. There is also a link provided that leads to a document describing the program in further detail. If your school does not already have an effective bullying program in place, perhaps the Olweus program is something worth giving a try.