Bully-Busters TM

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Author(s): Amelia Suckling and Carla Temple
Date of publication: 2001
Website: www.insideouted.com.au

PROGRAM OVERVIEW

Aim(s):

Bully-Busters ^TM aims to tackle the issue of bullying using a whole school approach. It offers three components that cater for all sectors of the school community. The three components are:

Teacher Professional Development Training
Parent Information Sessions
Student Worskshops (Prep-Year 6)

Schools have the flexibility to address bullying by implementing all three components or selecting the component based on the needs of the school community.

The aim of the student workshops is to provide the students with assertiveness strategies and help build resilience. The student workshops attempt to:

provide students with a variety of assertive strategies
engage students in responsible reporting
activate bystanders to take safe and sensible action
build resilience in students (to help break the victim cycle)

Target group:

The student workshop component is designed for primary children. The materials and content have been carefully designed to keep students actively engaged throughout the workshop. To date, the student workshops have catered for all sectors in the education arena.

Program content and components:

The student workshops cover:

the different types of bullying
the consequences of bullying for the target
assertive strategies
pro-active bystander behaviour
the importance of reporting bullying

Follow-up and follow-through activities to reinforce the concepts taught in the workshops are available for classroom implementation via the comprehensive resource manual, Bullying: A Whole School Approach (Suckling & Temple, 2001). The resource manual consists of 15 lessons with accompanying material that may be photocopied. Cool Calm Kids (Suckling & Temple, 2008), is designed for students in Prep-Year 2. The focus is to help children manage bossy peers.

PROGRAM EVALUATION

Identified theoretical framework:

The impetus for the design of our workshops is based on the comprehensive Australian research conducted by Professor Ken Rigby, which has shown that up to 15%, or one in seven children, are bullied weekly. Many of these children perceive that bullying has a detrimental impact on their health but do not tell their friends or parents that it is occurring. Research into children’s beliefs about bullying showed that a proportion of children considered that becoming a bully stopped them from being bullied and that it gave them a feeling of high status. Attitudes held by bystanders are also recognised to be an important factor in the bullying context.

This program is largely based on assertiveness and communication skills training.

PROGRAM IMPLEMENTATION

Program structure:

The lessons are as follows:

Lesson 1 – What is Bullying?
Introducing students to the meaning and nature of bullying behaviour
Lesson 2 – Why Children Bully?
Reassuring students that bullying behaviour exists for many reasons
Lesson 3 – Reporting a Bullying Incident
Raising students’ awareness about developing a ‘telling culture’, as well as understanding the importance of asking for support
Lesson 4 – Locating Bullying
Locating where bullying occurs, in order to raise awareness of the problem among staff and students
Lesson 5 – Creating an Anti-Bullying Code
Promoting a safe-school ethos by posting student graphical representations of their anti-bullying code around the school
Lesson 6 – The Bystander
Promoting shared understanding of respect, fairness and responsibility; to raise awareness that bystander’s actions are either part of the solution or the problem, and to encourage students to become responsible bystanders
Lesson 7 – The Bystander’s Code
Writing and graphically representing a student bystander code, promoting an ethos that taking action is being responsible, and then placing it around the school
Lesson 8 – Anti-Bullying Slogans
Displaying students’ graphical representations of anti-bullying slogans around the school, to act as reminders to the school community
Lesson 9 – Buddies
Training buddies in the necessary skills to support children who are targets of bullying
Lesson 10 – Staying in the Neutral Zone
Making students aware of the different ways of relating to others (passive, aggressive and assertive), the consequences of each, the meaning and effectiveness of staying in the Neutral Zone during conflict, and to visualise a safety shield in threatening and confronting situations
Lesson 11 – Say ‘No’ Like You Mean It
Teaching students the rules of saying ‘No’ (i.e. body language etc.), and the benefits of operating from the position of Neutral Zone
Lesson 12 – Using ‘I’ Messages
Understanding the features of an ‘I’ message
Lesson 13 – Using Robot Voice and Fogging
Extending the students’ repertoire of strategies for assertiveness using Fogging and Robot Voice, supported by visualising their own safety shield
Lesson 14 – Self-Talk – My Winning Voice
Introducing students to the nature of self-talk and how it affects behaviour – that it can be self-defeating or self-serving
Lesson 15 – Using Relaxation and Creative Visualisation
Giving students the experience of physical relaxation and for them to creatively visualise, by switching on to their Channel Perfect Positive Screen

The resource manual, Bullying: A Whole School Approach, is also used independently of the workshops.

Staff professional learning (PL):

The program is predominantly available in Victoria (other States by request), and is provided by the authors Amelia Suckling and Carla Temple (both primary teachers with further educational qualifications).

Teacher professional development – (in-service) provides practical strategies to identify and deal with bullying behaviour and to handle parent concerns. The focus of this in-service is to present prevention and intervention strategies through a whole school approach and guidelines for developing and maintaining an anti-bullying policy.
Format: Full day in-service 9am – 3pm $1200 plus GST
Twilight session 3.30 – 7pm $950 plus GST

There are other additional workshops available, which assist in the implementation and facilitation of this program.

Program costs:

The program materials have been designed to make the learning experience dynamic and non-competitive. The two resource books – Bullying: A Whole School Approach ($79.95) for students in Year 4-Year 6 and Cool, Calm Kids ($49.95) for students in Prep-Year 2 – include photocopy masters and lesson plans.

About the author(s):

Both Amelia Suckling and Carla Temple have been working specifically in the area of anti-bullying for the last eight years as their full time business. They now have an energetic team that are actively involved in program delivery. They have developed, researched and presented their programs to schools throughout Australia and now internationally. They bring with them a wealth of experience and a very practical approach to dealing with this complex issue.

They are published authors, their manual, Bullying A Whole School Approach, published by the Australian Council for Educational Research, 2001, is widely used throughout Australia and overseas. They have written for educational magazines and appear on educational DVDs distributed throughout Australasia. In 2001 Bully-Busters^TM was awarded a $70,000 grant to implement the program in seventy schools in the Shepparton district.

Both have a Diploma of Teaching and a Graduate Diploma in Special Education. Bully-Busters^TM is conducted in a variety of educational settings, helping schools to adopt efficient and effective whole school anti-bullying policy and practices. Bully-Busters^TM has been implemented into Catholic, government, independent, alternative and international schools.

They are enthusiastic in supporting schools in developing and maintaining successful intervention and prevention practices. They appreciate the complexities of school bullying remaining inspired and committed to reducing this serious form of violence.

Contact information:

Inside Out
PO Box 204
Chelsea, VIC. 3196
Phone: 0409 212 234 or (03) 9776 2096
Email: amelia@insideouted.com.au or carla@insideouted.com.au
Website: www.insideouted.com.au

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It is important to note that inclusion of a program in this Guide does not constitute an endorsement by KidsMatter Primary. All program details were correct at time of publishing.