Group Designing for People Concerned About Bullying in a School

Designing a Group

A Group for Individuals Concerned about School Bullying Incidents

What population is the group designed to serve?

The group is ultimately designed to serve students of a school where bullying has occurred, and the entire school students, staff, and administrators. Local community members, such as physicians and health professionals would also be welcome; individuals who are professional counselors may have useful contributions. As well, it will serve the students' families, friends, and the community. Each of these individuals has something to contribute in a group dialogue about bullying, from a different perspective. The largest issue to be faced at the onset is empowering individuals, such as students, to speak frankly in the presence of not only their peers, but also in the presence of perceived authority figures.

Parental involvement is important so that the parent can assist with issues that their child may have had concerning bullying; as well the parent is likely to be able to both contribute and learn from the group. Teacher participation will help the students, as this can help the bullied and teach the bullies that their behavior is unacceptable. Students involved in the group will realize the harmful effects of bullying. Peers have an important role to play since they are and/or were present during such incidents. Research indicates that any peers who observed the bullying incident can either be part of the solution or part of the problem (Lodge, 2008). The school principal can exercise his or her maximum power to prevent bullying related incidents. It is expected that principals are aware that placing the prevention of bullying as a top priority is important; the principal is in the position to facilitate adequate support to implement anti- bullying programs (Sandals, Auty, Hughes, & Pepler, 2005).

Anticipated Problem: a highly open-ended group ranging from students and their peers to families, school staff, and administrators may experience issues in terms of perceived authority. For example, students may be nervous and/or uncomfortable speaking honestly in front of authority figures. As well, with such a diverse group, specific activities of interest to one portion of the group may not necessarily be interesting to others. This will require insight and planning on the part of the group leader to ensure that those not involved in given activities do not simply quit the group, but are included.

• What is the purpose of the group?

Bullying is commonplace in junior and high schools, with young students generally reporting bullying incidents more than adults. Boys and girls report bullying incidents, particularly when bullying consist of harassment and insult. It has been seen that girls tend to get affected most by bullying. Boys generally bully in physical ways while girls bully in non-physical ways. Family support is necessary to determine whether a person is suffering from bullying incidents. The ability of a family to solve conflicts holds great power (Lodge, 2008). The group's aim is to prevent bullying incidents from occurring in the first place, so as to prevent later effects of bullying.

• What is the type of group? Provide a rationale for your decision

This support group method can deemed as an example of applied 'brief therapy', a concept developed in USA during the last two decades. It has powerful impact in clinical settings as well as being useful impact in educational settings. Brief therapy was developed in reply to psychoanalysis which was considered to be painstakingly elongated. Lessening the number of sessions worked surprisingly well as it led to better and more effective therapeutic sessions (Young, 1998).

• How will you choose group members? Provide a rationale for your decision

The principal would be a regular attendee in this group. On the other hand, parents would join depending upon their own personal/family interest, or even just from concern. Some parents may have to be 'encouraged' to attend. Teachers are expected to be participants so that they can help their own and other students. Students could be chosen on the basis of elections, or allowed to volunteer; students may then organize activities for other students to learn about preventing bullying.

• Will the group be closed or open-ended? Provide a rationale for your decision

This is a closed ended group because closed groups start and end on a particular date. They work on a particular planned chain of treatment modules. Some modules are intended to furnish basic information concerning a specific clinical / diagnosis problem, while others center on growth of or cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) strategies and/or coping skills. After basic concepts and strategies pertaining a treatment are covered, group therapy moves towards evidence-based individualized treatment plan(s). Every week, information from previous sessions is used, hence participants should be committed to the overall group sequence prior to joining a group (Seay, n.d.).

Closed ended groups are beneficial for individuals who either seeking a treatment first time or those planning to initiate treatment jointly. Reading and homework assignments are distributed during sessions (Seay, n.d.).

• Discuss the evidence of the best practices to be used for the group.

The Whole School Approach to Bullying Prevention and Intervention

Bullying in schools has become a commonly occurring phenomenon, with students being targets, culprits, and/or bystanders during such incidents. The bullying incidents affect the school environment adversely and can have a grave impact on a given student's academic performance. Taking action against bullying is a huge undertaking. Such programs consist of:

• School wide components placed for training, monitoring, awareness and gauging bullying;

• Class components emphasizing implementation of school-wide rules, as well as developing social and emotive skills such as empathy and problem solving; Intervention components involving both bullying students and bullied students (Berlin & Ruscitti, 2011).

Social and Emotional Learning

Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) centers on methodical development of a key set of emotive and social skills, enabling children to tackle challenges of life and thrive in social, professional and learning environments (Berlin & Ruscitti, 2011).

Positive school culture and climate

In order to prevent any incidents of bullying in a school environment, diversity should be welcomed with open arms and should be founded upon the pillars of respect. An anti-bullying policy works only when atmosphere of a school is comfortable, caring, trusting and respecting (Anti-bullying procedures for primary and post-primary schools, 2013).

Section Two

Week 1:

Goal(s): To form a healthy and safe learning environment; to encourage patient listening to others

Time: 30 minutes

Resources: Visual aid such as a poster or transparency and projector for displaying classroom agreements.

Activity: In order to create a healthy classroom, classroom agreements are a useful instrument to introduce as they can foster respect. While talking, the students will share their personal grievances. If possible, a brief film on the topic of bullying should be shown first to 'break the ice' on the topic.

Initiate and finalize a set of agreement suggested by the students. Assist them if they get stuck. Some potential agreements to be included are:

• Active and patient listening

• Don't laugh or 'snicker' when someone is speaking

• Don't judge individuals by their opinion

• Don't interject. To speak, raise your hand

• Talk about the main topic. Avoid getting sidetracked

• Respectfully disagree (Disagree with the opinion, not the person)

• Make use of 'I' statements, not overviews (Each person stands for his/her opinion) (Kim & Logan, 2004)

• Comments: The activities for weeks 1 through 4 are primarily focused on students and intended to encourage the students to be relaxed and comfortable. These activities will have little or no participation from adults, such as parents, staff, principal, and/or community visitors. One way to ameliorate this issue is to request that the adults 'consider' the activities, and perhaps write down what 'they' might suggest, but encourage them to listen and allow the students to express themselves. Perhaps at the end, ask for one or two comments from the adults.

Week 2

Goal(s): To develop common comprehension of bullying; deal with impolite behavior more often; to listen and contemplate student's personal experiences concerning bullying

Time: 30 minutes

Resources: None

Begin by asking the students to think about this question: What is bullying?

Ask for volunteers to write down examples of bullying. Divide the bullying into different types: physical, verbal, and/or emotional. Use follow-up questions to encourage the 'faces' of bullying to emerge in the multiple forms experienced by students.

When all the examples are written down, and agreed upon, ask: What is the difference between teasing and bullying? What is the difference between impolite behavior and bullying?

Discuss 'uncivilized behavior', and/or personal rudeness. This behavior might not be called bullying each time it occurs, but could lead to a situation when bullying is widely accepted and tolerated.

Conclude with a statement about the unit's goal: this unit was intended to encourage expression of opinions about bullying, to define bullying, and to encourage acting with respect for others (Kim & Logan, 2004)

Week 3

Goals: To familiarize the students with diversity-related terms and concepts; and to 'link' these to students' individual lives.

Time: 30 minutes

Resources: Handouts

Activity: Vocabulary Exercise

Each student is to be handed a vocabulary sheet with a variety of different terms that relate to the concepts of bullying and respect. Divide the students into three roughly equal sections; assign 1/3 of the words to each section. Now, ask each section to discuss and define the words in their section, and write down a few notes concerning how these words relate to their personal experience. Discuss each term and the student-derived meanings. Gather consensus from the entire room as to the meanings of the words (Kim & Logan, 2004)

Week 4

Goal: Students learn to differentiate between the terms self-acceptance and self-esteem. Students contribute ways to develop self-acceptance through self-talk using their own constructive connotations.

Time: 30 minutes

Resources: Handout "Building Self-Acceptance through Positive Self-Talk." Follow up sentences.

Activity: After looking over the handout, students will write down various related messages they have received during their lifetime. Volunteers will be asked to write sentences on the board and other students will participate. Follow up sentences will be completed by students with the help of self-talk (Burns, 2015)

Week 5

Goal: For this lesson, the focus is on school staff and administrators, and their development of an awareness of bullying in schools and its consequences. Bullying is prevalent in most places, the consequences are detrimental. To countering bullying, the problem needs to be understood clearly.

Time: 60 minutes

Resources: Revise lectures and present bullying statistics

Activity: Presentation on bullying including statistics, with discussion of the consequences of bullying upon students, their friends and families, and ultimately upon the community (Williams, 2010)

Comments: The activities in week 5 are not designed for students but rather for teachers, staff, and administrators. Student participation should be welcomed and encouraged, perhaps by asking students to take notes and prepare questions to present to the group at the end.

Week 6

Goal: The goal of this lesson is to present information concerning the legal aspects of bullying, and what laws relating to bullying exist for the given town, city, county, and state. The provision of such legal information will assist the teachers and school administrators to be aware of the resources at their disposal.

Time: 60 minutes

Resources: Review lecture notes and current town/city, county and state laws on bullying (if any). If available, consider inviting local law-enforcement to speak briefly on the topic. Consider inviting the school nurse to speak or address his/her role if a student comes to her with physical (and/or mental or emotional) injuries as a consequence of bullying.

Activity:

[1] Lecture: Is there a law on bullying in school(s)? When should bullying result in action to notify the police? Who is responsible to notify authorities? What action can the police take? What are the consequences of legal action, on the student(s) involved, on the families, on the school? How can the school understand and implement current law(s) concerning school bullying? (Williams, 2010) [2] Encourage discussion from the group participants.

Week 7

Goal: Development of a 'whole school approach' to bullying, creation of alertness concerning bullying, and developing a counter-plan to deal with this issue. The process should be embedded in school's philosophy.

Time: 45 minutes

Resources: None

Activity: Examine lectures and discussion questions. Ask the individuals to form three groups, and ask each group to come up with one-to-three items that should be part of a 'whole school' approach to bullying. Ask each group to choose a leader to help facilitate this process (Williams, 2010).

Week 8

Goal: Role Playing and How to Handle the Situation

Time: 60 minutes

Resources: None

Activity: In this session, the aim is to increase the level of unity between the participants so as to support one another in order to attain their own aims. The group leader is tasked with introducing both the concept of bullying to the participants and demonstrating its harmful effects on the children. A role play activity is conducted, organized by the group leader. In this activity, one person acts as a parent and one acts as a child. The role of the 'parent' is to show good listening and communication skills with their child concerning the bullying incident. After the role-play demonstration, ask the parents (and teachers, and other group participants) to split up into pairs. Each pair should develop a scenario and interact with each other in it (Lamanna, Shillingford, Parrish, & Sheffield, n.d.)

After about five minutes, ask the groups to come back and comment on what, if anything, they learned. Ask a representative student to comment on how useful this exercise was -- did they learn anything? Ask a representative from each of the other groups, such as teachers and parents, to comment on what they learned.

Week 9

Goal: Review and Develop Contracts

Time: 60 minutes

Resources: None

Activity: The group leader has to prepare the participants for termination of the group. Emphasis must be on tangible strategies for each type of group member to use what they have learned in improving the school environment with respect to bullying incidents.

Ask students to comment as to what they've learned from the group, and suggest how they could share such information with other students. As parents to comment on what they've learned, and how they might implement this with their own, or even friends' and neighbors' children. How might the parents' act to support the school? Ask for comments. Ask teachers to comment upon what they have learned about bullying and what concrete actions they might take to prevent bullying and to support students who have been bullied. Ask staff of the school to comment on what they have learned and to comment on any pro-active steps they might take to support children who have been bullied, and to prevent future bullying. Particularly seek input from school nurse, if any, and/or school health professionals. Ask the principal and/or other administrators to comment on what they have learned and how they could act directly to support bullied students and to prevent future incidences.

Interventions and review techniques acquired in group session should be implemented as assignments. Results should be communicated among the participants (Lamanna, Shillingford, Parrish, & Sheffield, n.d.)

Week 10

Goal: Review and Discuss

Time: 60 minutes

Resources: None

Activity:

The group leader is tasked with ensuring that parents implement what they have learned in the group session in real-life situations. The group leader should be aware of the manner in which parents will implement these skills from the group in their routine life. One follow-up session will be held before the conclusion of the school year. It is assumed that, being aware of the fact that they will have to report progress in the follow-up session; parents will actually work towards implementing those skills (Lamanna, Shillingford, Parrish, & Sheffield, n.d.) The group leader should also consider tasking the staff, teachers, administrators, and students with follow-up.

Section Three

• Give your reasoning, if the group was intended to last less than one hour or an hour

One reason for deciding on group meetings lasting less than an hour or one hour was because group members have other responsibilities. A second reason is that often, participation in a shorter event could be larger; third, including students means that shorter meetings are more appropriate for their learning styles.

• How did you decide what to integrate into the sessions?

Prior to designing the curriculum, literature on bullying and on successful implementation of anti-bullying policies was reviewed. As well, whenever possible, viewpoints of teachers, parents and students were taken in consideration prior to designing the curriculum.