BULLYING IN SCHOOL BASED SETTINGS
National Crime Prevention Centre
What Have We Learned?
March 23, 2006
Overview
•
National Crime Prevention Strategy
•
What is bullying?
•
What we have learned
•
Next steps
1
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
2
Interest in Bullying
• School-based initiatives
• Public Education
• Canadian Initiative for Prevention of Bullying
• Knowledge development
3
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
4
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
5
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.
6
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
7
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 antisocial behaviour, aggressive tendencies, depression
8
Best Practices
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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
9
What doesn’t work




Zero tolerance
School expulsion
Individually-focused programs
Situational deterrents
10
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
11
Regional Distribution of Bullying Projects
British
Columbia
9%
Prairie
9%
Ontario
25%
North
3%
National
5%
Atlantic
20%
Québec
29%
12
Objectives
Objective
Education/Awareness
Knowledge Development
Community Capacity Building
Life/Social Skills Development
Behavioural Change
Participation/Engaging/Mobilization
Attitude Change
Develop Relationship/Partnership
Program Development
Enhanced Leadership Development
Organizational Capacity Building
Systemic Integration & Change
Cultural Development
# of
Responses
67
50
31
30
30
29
27
25
22
10
5
5
3
% of
Projects
77%
57%
36%
34%
34%
33%
31%
29%
25%
11%
6%
6%
3%
13
Risk and Protective Factors
Category
Individual Skills &
Characteristics
Community Related
Factors
School Related
Factors
Family and
Friends
Society Related
Factors
# of
Responses
80
Percentage of
Projects
92%
57
66%
53
61%
27
31%
20
23%
14
Activities
#of
Responses
% of
Projects
Provide workshops, presentations or
classes for children or youth
47
71%
Create a product, tool or resource
45
68%
Provide training to teachers, school staff
& others who work w/children and youth
24
36%
Organize an awareness campaign
19
29%
Conduct a literature review related to
crime/victimization issues & solutions
19
29%
Activity
15
Partnerships
Type of Partner
Criminal Justice/Police
An individual school
Non-profit volunteer Organization
School Board
Health Organization/Agency
Local/Municipal/Regional Government
Private Foundations
Business/Corporations
Social Services
Education Association or Organization
# of
Responses
35
28
28
24
20
16
15
15
14
13
% of
Projects
45%
36%
36%
31%
26%
21%
19%
19%
18%
17%
16
Sponsor
Sectors represented by Sponsoring
Organizations
Non–government organizations
Education Sector
Crime Prevention Groups
Coalition/Interagency network
Drama Companies
Private Foundations
Religious/Faith
Local/Municipal/Regional Government
Aboriginal NG – First Nation
Equality Seeking/Advocacy Groups
Social Services
Health
Urban/Community Planning
# of
Responses
42
15
12
6
3
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
% of
Projects
48%
17%
14%
7%
3%
2%
1%
1%
1%
1%
1%
1%
1%
17
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**
18
Challenges


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Project planning
Working within school environment
Engaging parents
Coping with the unexpected
Difficult subject matter
Evaluation and research issues
19
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
20
Public Education
Public Service Announcements
 Concerned Children’s Advertisers (CCA)
 Lesson plans being developed
 Visit website www.cca-kids.ca
21
What Next?
• Development of variety of products
• Influence community action and research
• Build continual, systematic loop of knowledge development
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