Background:Victimization among children is associated with adverse effects on their physical and psychological health. Many health complaints follow as a result of bullying and anxiety and depression also precede bullying. The Dutch school-wide antibullying program ‘Prima’ was developed based on techniques and scientific insights that are known to be effective. In this randomized trial we investigate the effects of school-wide antibullying program on bullying behavior and self-esteem and depression.Methods:A total of 4,229 students of grade 3 to 6 of 31 primary schoolsparticipated in this study. The schools were randomly assigned to three conditions. Condition A was offered a teachertraining, an online screening tool for bullying behavior, and a set of practice- and evidence-based guidelines to deal with difficult bullying situations. Condition B included all of condition A plus a series of eight lessons for the students. Condition C was the control group. A questionnaire was filled out by the students before and after the intervention.Results:Results from the pretest showed that 16% of the students was bullied regularly. There was a significant difference between bullied and non-bullied children in their reported mental health. Bullied students indicated much more depressive symptoms compared to non-bullied students (3,67 vs 1,67, p= .000). Bullied children also indicated lower self-esteem (16,74 vs 19,84, p = .000). The effects of the intervention program are currently analyzed and will be presented at the conference in the fall of 2018.Conclusions:Bullying is strongly related to mental health issues among children. To address mental health issues among youth, schools should focus on evidence-based anti-bullying programs as a vital part of a wider school policy.Key messages:-Bullying has a strong impact on the wellbeing and mental health of children.-School programs focused on preventing bullying can therefore reduce health complaints among children.
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Although anti-bullying programs often include a component that focuses on strengthening teachers’ abilities in identifying and addressing bullying, it is not clear which bullying situations teachers find difficult to address and what type of support is needed. In the current qualitative study, we investigated what teachers considered difficult bullying situations, how they responded to these situations, and which barriers they encountered. We used data from individual in-depth interviews conducted with 38 Dutch elementary school teachers. Qualitative analysis showed that teachers experienced difficulties in (a) identifying bullying that happens out of sight, (b) estimating the seriousness of a reported incident, (c) addressing persistent aggressive and bullying behavior, and (d) finding solutions with parents to reduce bullying. Teachers used a variety of strategies in their efforts to address these situations. The results give insight into teachers’ needs regarding specific training and support in anti-bullying programs and preservice teacher programs.
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Background: School bullying has detrimental impact on the health of those involved. Previously, bullying was perceived as an issue of ‘victims’ and ‘bullies’, while later, interventions targeted whole groups and schools. Nowadays, it is considered a societal issue: bullying is enabled by norms and context. These new understandings underline the need for collaboration across institutions, such as home and school. However, in practice, collaboration can be challenging. Parents and teachers have their personal strengths and weaknesses, and their interactions, characteristics of the school, and several societal factors impact their opportunities for productive family-school partnerships. Guidance regarding what works in anti-bullying collaboration is therefore urgently needed.Aim: The applied research project ‘together against bullying’ addressed the need for practical insights regarding cross-institutional collaboration. Together with stakeholders, we aimed to discover the barriers and facilitators to anti-bullying collaboration. Our main research question was: What factors aid family-school partnership to tackle bullying?Methods: We were interested in people’s experiences of collaboration against bullying. Narrative interviewing, self-report surveys, and semi structured interviewing were the methods employed throughout our participatory action research project. Findings: Parents and teachers collaborate during discovering, interpreting, planning, acting, and evaluating of bullying situations. Our preliminary findings suggest they face multiple obstacles along the way. However, there are facilitators as well. When parents and teachers for example communicate frequently and openly, construct a shared understanding, trust, and respect each other, and acknowledge their shared responsibility, they can indeed successfully collaborate to effectively tackle bullying. Conclusions: Our project shows that parents and teachers can overcome obstacles inherent to collaboration to tackle bullying. Through participatory action, teachers and parents became aware of the context in which they collaborate, discovered factors that impact collaboration, and were able to utilize these insights to advance their understanding and practice of family-school partnership to tackle bullying.
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Bullying at school is an emotionally charged topic that significantly tests the relationship between parents and teachers. It is a sensitive issue as it directly relates to the child's upbringing at home. Furthermore, parents and teachers have differing perspectives on the child, and the strategies they adopt to curb bullying are based on different perspectives and spheres of influence. In recent years, a variety of measures have been implemented in order to combat bullying at primary schools. Many different anti-bullying programmes have been developed for schools and a wide range of methods, training courses and tools are available to help teachers work together with parents in order to optimise their child's educational development. However, all of these anti-bullying methods lack concrete advice and tools to help teachers work together with parents whose children are personally involved in an incidence of bullying, despite experts across the board agreeing that cooperation between parents and teachers is of vital importance.The goal of this project is to develop an effective strategy to facilitate cooperation between parents and teachers that can be employed in the event of bullying as a supplement to existing anti-bullying programmes. This consortium's ambition is to boost the social safety of children in primary education by applying expertise in the field of bullying and parental involvement, and by combining past experiences.
