Bullying Prevention
Conflict resolution and bullying prevention are natural partners. A comprehensive violence prevention plan should include both. Schools that have a solid conflict resolution program in place are ideally positioned to engage in bullying prevention as a next step. Conflict resolution teaches students how to solve problems when power is fairly equal and when both parties have some interest in resolving the conflict. Bullying, on the other hand, occurs when one party has more power, that party has no interest in resolving the problem, and he is primarily interested in hurting the other. In these circumstances, conflict resolution techniques are not likely to be effective, so other methods must be in place. (To learning more about bullying prevention, please visit our online learning module.)
A bullying prevention program should teach students how to distinguish normal peer conflict, which responds well to conflict resolution strategies, from bullying violence, which warrants a different set of strategies. Once students understand which type of conflict they are dealing with, they can decide which strategies to use. There are several factors (for example, contextual factors and personality traits) that determine when some strategies are more appropriate than others.
Rethinking the deeper impacts that bullying has on our school culture is important for existing conflict resolution programs. While many such programs have a long history of creating safe and caring youth cultures and providing students and staff with specific skills to confront injustice, the recent attention to bullying has expanded the importance of this work and has provided language and additional strategies for surfacing and handling this more serious form of conflict and violence. Likewise, bullying prevention programs can benefit from the comprehensive experience that conflict resolution programs offer.
Videos of Possible Interest
- Peaceful School Bus Program – Hazelden Foundation
- Overview of the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program
- Cyberbullying (UNICEF)
- Help Increase the Peace Students Bullying Research Project
- Bullied: A Student, a School and a Case That Made History
- Girls Bullying
- Puppet Show – Kids Against Bullying
- Students Take on Cyberbullying
- On-the-Spot Mediation: how to use your skills in everyday life
- PAX Good Behaviour Game
- Another Bully Busters Song
- Social Emotional Learning via The Heart Story (RCCP)
- Teaching Students How to “Stand Up” to Bullying – Webinar Archive
- The Transformation of West Philadelphia High School: a story of hope
- Cyberbullying Toolkit for Educators
- Cyberbullying Toolkit: Webinar Archive
- On-the-Spot Bullying Prevention
See MORE VIDEOS...
Sample Catalog Resources
Below you'll find a randomized listing of up to 20 related items (we may have more...) drawn from our Resource Catalog.
| Resource Title | Description | Links |
|---|---|---|
| Bullying in our schools: protecting GLBT youth | Powerpoint presentation which discusses bullying in schools particularly involving gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgendered youth in schools. | |
| Working with young people who bully others: tips for mental health professionals | Pdf document with tips for mental health workers who treat bullies. | |
| Community-based bullying prevention: tips for community members | Pdf document, geared toward community members, discussing bullying prevention. | |
| Exploring the nature and prevention of bullying: Significant identifying characteristics for victims | Word document that lists 21 characteristics of victims of bullying. | |
| Cyber bullying | Word document examining bullying in cyberspace, with advice to parents and young people from Aman Batheja. | |
| Providing support to children who are bullied: tips for school personnel and other adults | Pdf document with advice on bullying prevention geared toward school personnel and other adults. | |
| Stop Bullying Now Activities Guide | A 12-page pdf of activity ideas for preventing bullying in schools and youth serving organizations. | |
| Physical and verbal bullying | Web-based interative scenario which explores bullying. | |
| The Young Peacebuilders Guide To Tackling Harmful Narratives | The Young Peacebuilders’ Guide to Tackling Harmful Narratives entails a concrete step-by-step methodology and tools to support young peacebuilders in their fight against harmful narratives, as well as four concrete alternative narrative campaigns that were developed by UNOY Peacebuilders members. Rather than creating the umpteenth resource that sheds light on the issue of harmful narratives, this by-youth-for-youth guide is a collaborative document that encapsulates the work and input of 11 UNOY members who took part in UNOY Peacebuilders’ capacity development programme—Youth Promoting Peaceful and Cohesive Societies in Europe—held between April and June 2022, as well as the insights of experts in disinformation and media development at large. | |
| Bully Prevention in Positive Behavior Support for Middle Schools | This 45-page handbook focuses on school-wide positive behavior support, explicit instruction, and a redefinition of the bullying construct in a middle school. | |
| Measuring Bullying Victimization, Perpetration, and Bystander Experiences: A Compendium | This compendium (128-page pdf) provides researchers, prevention specialists, and health educators with tools to measure a range of bullying experiences: bully perpetration, bully victimization, bully-victim experiences, and bystander experiences. The compendium represents a starting point from which researchers can consider a set of psychometrically sound measures for assessing self-reported incidence and prevalence of a variety of bullying experiences. | |
| Sample responses for using the "Teachable moment" for responding to bullying: On-the-spot interventi | Word document that describes different types of bullying behavior and situations, with suggested responses for educators. | |
| Restorative Interventions Implementation Tool Kit | Implementation tools and resources for school staff and other adults trained to facilitate conferences and circles to repair harm in educational settings. The tools and resources are designed to assess readiness, implementation and outcomes, as well provide guidance for implementing any school-based restorative model. | |
| Bullying prevention | On-line learning module which teaches the user to "State definitions and types of bullying, list the short and long-term effects of bullying, describe places where bullying happens, state examples of effective and appropriate bullying interventions, describe the roles of parents, siblings and others in preventing bullying, recognize the requirements of a school bullying prevention program and locate resources for bully prevention." | |
| Bullying prevention and intervention: TeamMates Mentoring Program Lincoln Public Schools | 9-page PDF case study which, "looks at one program in Nebraska, Lincoln Public Schools (LPS) TeamMates, that has decided to address bullying at several schools through mentoring, using volunteers from the community to reach out to bullies and victims alike." | |
| HRSA stop bullying now resource kit | One page list of materials on bullying for professionals and parents. | |
| SACSC Toward a safe and caring secondary curriculum | Web site developed by the Society for Safe and Caring Schools and Communities in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada whose mission "is to encourage home, school and community practices that teach, model and reinforce socially responsible and respectful behaviors, so that living and learning can take place in a safe, caring and inclusive environment. Achieving this mission requires the involvement not only of parents, teachers, and children, but of all the important adults in children's lives." The "purpose of the Society for Safe and Caring Schools and Communities Toward a Safe and Caring Curriculum Secondary Unit and Lesson Plans web-based resource is to provide units, lesson plans and other resources that integrate safe and caring knowledge, skills and attitudes into all subject areas in the Alberta secondary curriculum... this resource was developed by Alberta reachers in whose classrooms the accompanying lessons have been field tested." The lessons address 6 topics: Living Respectfully; Developing Self-Esteem; Respecting Diversity and Preventing Prejudice; Managing Anger; Dealing with Bullying; and Resolving Conflicts Peacefully for junior and senior high school students. | |
| Documenting bullying at your school: tips for school administrators | Pdf document which introduces the idea of assessing and tracking bullying behavior at school for administrators. | |
| Sample newsletter article: bullying among children and youth | Pdf document presenting a sample newsletter article on bullying. | |
| Warning signs that a child is being bullied | Pdf document illustrating behaviors that may alert parents of bullied children and steps they can take to correct the problem. |