1. BULLYING IN SCHOOL BASED SETTINGS National Crime Prevention Centre What Have We Learned? March 23, 2006

2. 1 Overview National Crime Prevention Strategy What is bullying? What we have learned Next steps

3. 2 National Crime Prevention Strategy Focus on people most vulnerable to becoming offenders or victims (children, youth, Aboriginal people, seniors among others) Focus on factors that place people at higher risk such as domestic violence, substance abuse, low literacy skills, poverty Focus on crime prevention through social development Social policy tool

4. 3 Interest in Bullying School-based initiatives Public Education Canadian Initiative for Prevention of Bullying Knowledge development

5. 4 Bullying Actions within a relationship between a dominant person or group and a less dominant person or group where:  An imbalance of power (real or perceived)  Physical or psychological (verbal or social)  Direct or indirect actions  Repeated over time  Intent to harm

6. 5 Canadian Statistics – High School Yuile, Pepler, Craig & Connolly (2003)  11% of high school students reported bullying others in the last 5 days  10-15% of students reported being victims of bullying in the last 5 days  Bullying rates increase during transition to grade 9 especially for boys  65% of high school students are victims of verbal or social bullying at least once during the term

7. 6 A Larger Context Bullying problems are relationship problems that occur in a social domain. As such, they also implicate:  Peers – present in 85% of bullying episodes  Adults - parents, teachers, administrative staff, coaches, lunchroom supervisors, custodial staff  Larger social domain – community and society, popular media.

8. 7 Helping Adults Intervene Adult intervention is low:  Most bullying is verbal  Incidents are brief  Clandestine nature – occur in low monitoring situations  Other priorities  Beliefs and values

9. 8 Consequences of Bullying Victims – physical and emotional damage Long lasting – distress, self-blame, fear, depression, suicide Bullies – anti-social behaviour, dating violence, delinquent behaviour Long lasting – continued relationship problems and anti- social behaviour, aggressive tendencies, depression

10. 9 Best Practices  Develop whole school approach  Plan the intervention  Address multiple risk factors  Involve multiple stakeholders  Involve students in all aspects  Consider audience  gender, age, culture, sexual orientation

11. 10 What doesn’t work  Zero tolerance  School expulsion  Individually-focused programs  Situational deterrents

12. 11 Mining NCPS Projects  87 school-based bullying projects  Funded from April 1, 1998 to March 31, 2003  Total amount of funding - $5.7M dollars  78/87 projects were funded through Community Mobilization Program  Projects were funded in every province and territory

13. 12 Regional Distribution of Bullying Projects

14. 13 Objectives

15. 14 Risk and Protective Factors Category# of Responses Percentage of Projects Individual Skills & Characteristics 8092% Community Related Factors 5766% School Related Factors 5361% Family and Friends 2731% Society Related Factors 2023%

16. 15 Activities Activity #of Responses % of Projects Provide workshops, presentations or classes for children or youth 4771% Create a product, tool or resource4568% Provide training to teachers, school staff & others who work w/children and youth 2436% Organize an awareness campaign1929% Conduct a literature review related to crime/victimization issues & solutions 1929%

17. 16 Partnerships

18. 17 Sponsor

19. 18 What Projects Said Worked Workshops, presentations– esp. interactive ones Use of theatre – powerful in its impact Conferences –follow-up actions essential Tools, resources – with youth involvement Anti-bullying curriculum – not just “one-shot” Skill-building – for youth at risk Mentoring – benefits for both mentor and mentee **Comprehensive Community Approaches**

20. 19 Challenges  Project planning  Working within school environment  Engaging parents  Coping with the unexpected  Difficult subject matter  Evaluation and research issues

21. 20 Some of the gaps in knowledge  Gender specific approaches  Age-specific approaches  Bullying based on sexual orientation  Bullying based on cultural background  Bullying based on disabilities – both victims and bullies

22. 21 Public Education Public Service Announcements  Concerned Children’s Advertisers (CCA)  Lesson plans being developed  Visit website www.cca-kids.ca

23. 22 What Next? Development of variety of products Influence community action and research Build continual, systematic loop of knowledge development

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