The Bullying Prevention Initiative

1
The Bullying Prevention Initiative

• Three-Year EvaluationHighlights
• 2005-2008

2
Overview

• About The Colorado Trust the Bullying
  Prevention Initiative (BPI)
• The Bullying Dynamic
• Major Evaluation Findings from BPI
• Practical Best Practices
• Call to Action

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About The Colorado Trust

• The Colorado Trust works closely with nonprofit
  organizations in every county across CO to
  improve health and well-being
• Current vision is to achieve access to health for
  all Coloradoans by 2018
• Funded the recently completed Bullying Prevention
  Initiative

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About the Bullying Prevention Initiative

• Three year, 9-million initiative for school
  districts, schools and community-based
  organizations statewide
• Built skills in youth and adults to prevent and
  intervene in bullying
• Served 45 grantees in 2005-2008

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What is bullying?

• Bullying is the intentional exclusion of targeted
  youth in activities or social events, gossiping
  meanly about others, unprovoked physical and
  verbal attacks, or using the Internet to
  anonymously harass and verbally attack others.
• Reflecting an
• imbalance of power
• Meant to harm
• Repeated over time

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Types of Bullying

• Physical pushing, shoving, tripping
• Verbal aggressive teasing and spreading rumors
  or lies
• Internet telling lies or rumors by email,
  instant messaging or on Web sites

Bullying and teasing are different. If you are
doing it in fun without hurting someones
feelings, its teasing. Bullying is when a joke
isnt funny anymore. Student
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Significance of Bullying

• Bullying
• Is often dismissed as normal behavior
• Can leave children and young adults feeling
  depressed and alone and even sick
• Youth who bully typically have a criminal record
  by age 24
• 17 states have anti-bullying laws
• Victims have an increased chance of academic
  failure, low self-esteem and inability to connect
  socially with others
• This was reinforced by BPI Evaluation

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Evaluation Design

• Evaluation consisted of
• Surveys
• Twice annually
• Over 3,000 students in 5th, 8th and 11th grades
• Over 1,500 adult staff members
• In-depth case studies of 4 school-based bullying
  prevention programs
• Focus groups with staff and students
• Comparative analysis of collective demographic
  and student achievement data among participating
  schools

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Finding One

• Bullying was prevalent
• There were certain groups that were more likely
  to bully
• Degree of bullying varies by grade

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Prevalence of Bullying

• In year one of the study, the majority of
  students in 5th through 12th grades said they had
  experienced some form of bullying
• In year one, for the preceding 12 months
• 57 of students reported bullying others verbally
• 33 reported bullying others physically
• 10 reported bullying via the Internet

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Who bullies?

• Boys were
• 75 percent more likely to use physical bullying
  than girls
• 22 percent more likely to bully others verbally
• No difference between boys and girls for Internet
  bullying (cyberbullying)
• Incidents did appear to be higher in rural vs.
  urban areas

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Bullying varies by grade

• Physical and Internet bullying increased in
  middle school, but dropped off in high school
• Verbal bullying rose significantly in middle
  school and remained elevated in high school
• Almost 80 percent of middle and high school youth
  reported that they had verbally bullied others

The middle school climate is more difficult.
There are many social cliques. Substance abuse is
earlier. Sexual activity is earlier, and it is
difficult to create positive values.
- School coordinator
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Implications of Finding 1

• Bullying prevention should begin during the
  elementary school years when the behavior is
  first emerging
• Throughout middle and high school years, focusing
  on verbal and cyberbullying in particular is
  critical

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Finding Two

• Beliefs and behaviors changed for the better over
  the three years
• Youth and adults awareness of bullying increased
• On average, bullying decreased over the course of
  the BPI

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Changing Beliefs

• Focus group findings demonstrate students
  feeling that bullying is a problem and that it
  should be avoided due to its potential to harm
  others
• Adult surveys show that 95 of adults realized it
  was their responsibility to intervene in bullying
  situations

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Bullying declined

• Over three years
• Decrease in students experiencing physical
  bullying from 70 to 61
• Students being bullied verbally (which included
  Internet bullying) dropped from 76 in the to 71
• Students bullying others physically or verbally
  decreased from 56 to 44

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Implications of Finding 2

• Bullying can be reduced over time if bullying
  prevention programming is effectively implemented
• Adult awareness of, and intervention in, bullying
  situations is critical to reducing bullying
• When students perceive bullying as a negative
  behavior, bullying decreases

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Finding Three

• School culture had a direct impact on bullying
• Positive relationships with adults
• Less bullying occurred when the culture was not
  accepting of bullying

Bullying is everywhere families, schools, even
churches. We cant really expect children to
change until we as adults truly embrace this.
Adults must be role models for bullying
prevention. Bullying Prevention Initiative
Grantee
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Relationships with adults

• 63 of adults indicated that their school was
  doing a fair amount to a lot in
• Demonstrating commitment to address bullying
• Developing and implementing policies and programs
• Supporting an active stakeholder group
• Providing training and supervision of teachers
  and staff
• Promoting positive youth development, cultural
  competency and youth-adult partnerships

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School culture

• Evaluation found that students take cues from the
  school culture
• Youth who approved of bullying were significantly
  more likely to report bullying others
• Youth who approved of bullying were less likely
  to seek adult help or think that others would
  step in to prevent bullying
• This pattern did not differ much by different
  types of bullying, gender, ethnicity or
  geographic location

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Less bullying occurred when the culture was not
accepting of bullying

• Focus groups told evaluators
• Elementary level students were aware of general
  school norms and acceptability of bullying
• Were very aware of bullying, the need to refrain
  and the potential harm to others
• Overall bullying behavior declined from year 1 to
  year 3

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Implications of Finding 3

• A culture that actively discourages bullying
  behavior and encourages trust, fairness and
  respect can reduce bullying behavior
• Student and adult intervention in bullying
  situations is important in reducing bullying
  behavior

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Finding four

• Schools with lower levels of bullying
  demonstrated higher standardized test scores
  (Colorado Student Assessment Program or CSAP)

Previous studies have shown that bullying is
linked to learning difficulties resulting from
fear of being bullied, distractibility,
absenteeism and dropping out of school. ?
Bullying Preventing Initiative Evaluation
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Academic Impacts

• Almost 33 of schools below the average frequency
  of bullying in the first year of the initiative
  were above the average CSAP score
• Only 14 of schools reporting a higher frequency
  of bullying were above the average CSAP score

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First Year Bullying CSAP
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Trend Continued

• In year two, about 47 of the schools
  experiencing less bullying showed
  higher-than-average CSAP scores
• Only about 6 of schools with more bullying were
  above this indicator of academic achievement

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Second Year Bullying CSAP
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Chicken or the Egg?

• While the findings show an association between
  bullying and overall school performance, the data
  did not reveal whether low-achieving schools
  provided a favorable environment for bullying or
  whether bullying in schools interfered with
  learning and achievement
• Evaluators hypothesize that they likely
  influenced each other

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School Climate
Achievement
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Implications of Finding 4

• Schools with low academic achievement scores
  often struggle to nurture caring and responsive
  relationships between adults and youth
• If children are afraid to come to school because
  they are bullied regularly, it is unlikely that
  they will start each day ready to learn

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Best Practices in Bullying Prevention

• Regularly assess the social climate in schools
  and other youth-centered environments
• Make bullying prevention an integral and
  permanent component of the school environment
• Establish and enforce school rules and policies
  related to bullying
• Provide on-going training for school staff and
  increase adult supervision in hot spots for
  bullying

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Best Practices in Bullying Prevention

• Form a team responsible for coordinating bullying
  prevention efforts
• Garner support of school staff, parents and other
  key partners
• Give young people an active and meaningful role
• Develop cultural competency strategies, skills
  and programs that are inclusive and enhance
  communications and relationship building

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Bullying prevention is most effective when

• Adults understand the extent of the bullying
  problem in a school
• Emphasis is placed on a positive school climate
  and culture
• Bystanders step in
• There is complete buy-in among all school staff

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A Call to Action

• Key questions for
• Parents
• Educators
• Policymakers

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Key Questions for Parents

• Does your child feel safe in school?
• Does your childs school have an anti-bullying
  program in place?
• Is it effective, and how does the school know?
• Does the school ask parents and students for
  their input on how to prevent bullying?

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Key Questions for Educators

• Do the adults in the school understand the extent
  of the bullying problem?
• Can they distinguish bullying from other normal
  conflict?
• Has the school created an environment that
  promotes care and concern for others?
• Is all staff bought in to bullying prevention?
• Are these prevention strategies embedded
  school-wide?

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Key Questions for Policymakers

• Have policymakers passed legislation or local
  policies that define and prohibit bullying?
• Have school districts been encouraged to identify
  methods to decrease and document bullying?
• Are these local and state-level policies
  effective?
• Have the voices of educators, students and
  parents been part of the discussion?

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What to know more?

• Visit www.coloradotrust.org to download the full
  evaluation report.
• To learn more about how to prevent bullying, view
  the Bullying Prevention Resource Guide at
  www.bullyingprevention.org.

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Q A
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Links to articles for BPI evaluation

• Cook, C. R., Tuthill, L., Williams, K. R,
  Guerra, N. G. (2007). Cyberbulling What is it
  and what can we do about it? Communique 36 1-5.
• Cook, C. R., Williams, K. R., Guerra, N. G,
  Kim, T. (in press). Variability in the prevalence
  of bullying and victimization A cross-national
  and methodological analysis. In S. R. Jimerson,
  S. M. Swearer, D. L. Espelage, (Eds.), The
  international handbook of school bullying. New
  York Routledge.
• Guerra, N. G., Williams, K. R. (in press).
  Implementing bullying prevention in diverse
  settings Geographic, economic, and cultural
  influences. In E. M. Vernberg B.K. Biggs
  (Eds.), Preventing and treating bullying and
  victimization. Oxford University Press.
• Williams, K. R., Guerra, N. G. (2007).
  Prevalence and predictors of Internet bullying.
  Journal of Adolescent Health 41 514-521.
• Cook, C.R., Williams, K.R., Guerra, N.G., Kim,
  T.E., Sadek, S. (In Progress) Predictors of
  Bullying and Victimization in Childhood and
  Adolescence A Meta-Analytic Investigation.