1 Bullying Marisa Hoffman

2 Problem/Situation Addressed One in four students are bullied and one in five identify themselves as a bully. Victims of bullying develop aggressive behaviors and resort to protecting themselves by bringing weapons to school. Short-term effects of bullying: Depression Anxiety Decrease in Self-worth and Competence Academic effects: Chronic absenteeism Reduced academic performance School officials are aware of this, but bullying continues to occur and be the most rampant form of low-level violence in schools today.

3 Stakeholder: School Staff Capacities: –Have the ability to easily collaborate with other stakeholders through phone conversations, meetings, one-on-one interaction, etc… –Have the ability to decide how much effort they are going to put into bully prevention and implementing bully intervention programs –Have easy access to Internet and a computer to search for information on bully prevention and intervention programs. –Have the ability to observe students and to develop a relationship with students to where they feel comfortable to report being bullied. Needs: –Need easy access to bullying materials that address effects of bullying and how to identify bullying behaviors. –Stronger collaboration needs to occur between school staff, parents, and students. –Training needs to be improved –Need to be familiarized with bullying intervention programs and especially the bullying programs being used within the school.

4 Stakeholder: Experts Capacities: –Have the knowledge needed on bullying –Have researched based information available Needs: –Knowledge obtained from experts in the field should be shared in such a way where it is user friendly to all stakeholders. –Increased collaboration between all stakeholders.

5 Stakeholder: Parents Capacities: –Through the behaviors parents portray, they can determine how their children will behave while at school. –Have the ability to easily collaborate with other stakeholders through phone conversations, meetings, one-on-one meetings, etc Needs: –Parents need to understand the importance of modeling positive behaviors and the impact their parenting style can have on their child. –Parents and school staff need to increase their collaboration efforts. –Easier access to bullying information. –Need to understand how bullying can have short-term and long-effects on their child

6 Stakeholders: Students Includes: Bystanders, Victims, and/or Bullies Capacities: –Have the ability to decide if they want to report bullying behaviors. –Witness bullying first hand. –Are able to decide how they will respond to being bullied. –Have easy access to computers and Internet Needs: –Improved collaboration between all stakeholders –Need to feel comfortable reporting bullying without feeling their own well-being is at risk. –Increased knowledge of what to do if being bullied.

7 Solution 1 Development of an application that will include bullying information, current statistics, separate categories to parents, teachers, and students to go to to find resources. –Examples of similar applications: Bully Online Committee for Children Canadian Bullying Website Utilization of PEIMS (Public Education Information Management System) to keep track of bullying reports.

8 Solution 2 Development of a training program for teachers, parents, and students. Collaboration of all parties would need to be present. Training would include surveys and web based training similar to: –Bully Safe SchoolsBully Safe Schools Also would include simulation training videos for learning purposes. An example of a demo can be viewed here: –Right Reason TechRight Reason Tech

9 Questions and Vote What questions do you have? What suggestions do you have? Would you vote for solution 1 or 2?