Evaluating Bullying Prevention Programs
The first step in choosing a bullying prevention program is examining bullying issues within your school and assessing current school safety programs. The main consideration should be which type of bullying prevention program will help you improve peer relations and create a more positive atmosphere where students can learn and develop.
Once you establish a Bullying Prevention Coordinating Committee, work with committee members and school safety personnel to evaluate bullying prevention programs. In order to effectively address bullying, a bullying prevention program should:
- demonstrate proven effectiveness
- work to prevent or reduce bullying throughout a school setting
- go beyond a one-day assembly or simple classroom curriculum
- involve all students, administrators, teachers, non-teaching staff, parents, and the community
- fit your school safety needs
More than a Single Classroom Anti-Bullying Curriculum
Some bullying prevention programs focus on single classroom implementation with a set of short-term lesson plans. Research shows that these isolated efforts are not as effective as comprehensive, schoolwide implementation. A schoolwide bullying prevention program:
- becomes part of every school day and continues indefinitely-there is no time limit.
- addresses bullying in all areas of a school, not just in the classroom.
- makes adults responsible for ensuring that bullying stops by equipping them with the skills and power to take action. Since bullying is a form of peer abuse, students may not be able to deal with it on their own.
- encourages every adult to actively intervene and help prevent bullying. When all staff members are trained an empowered, you'll achieve better staff unity and greater program effectiveness.
The Olweus Bullying Prevention Program
The Olweus Bullying Prevention Program is the most researched and best-known bullying prevention program available today. It offers comprehensive guidance and resources for long-term, systematic change.
Bullying problems don't just happen in the classroom nor do they involve just the student being bullied and the students who are doing the bullying. Bullying involves and affects all students and adults in the school. Changing the school climate requires a multilevel effort that goes beyond simple classroom curriculum interventions.
The Olweus Bullying Prevention Program is designed for students in elementary, middle, and junior high schools (students in grades 3-10). All students participate in most aspects of the program, while students identified as bullying others, or as targets of bullying, receive additional individualized interventions.
Rather than a single classroom anti-bullying curriculum, the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program is a whole-school, systems-change program with individual, classroom, school, and community components.
The goals of the program are:
- to reduce existing bullying problems among students
- to prevent the development of new bullying problems
- to achieve better peer relations at school
Read more about the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program.
Request free information about the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program.
