Macromentary

Here is a link to our final presentation. It is a documentary of our Macro work. For your enjoyment... MACROMENTARY!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ylzckbzfle2s0s9/Macromentary.mp4?dl=0 

This video may take awhile to upload.

Social Change Effort Project (SCEP) Assessment Results & Action Plan

Our assessment was predicated on surveys distributed to teachers and staff at Mound Fort Junior High School, Midvale Elementary, Guadalupe School and Sandy Elementary. Using the 48 surveys collected, we searched for overarching themes. This allowed for identification of an action plan benefiting all parties. Although each school reflected different trends, we did observe common themes.  

When asked to define bullying, our survey respondents provided statements such as “repeated aggression or threats,” “purposefully demeaning,” “recurrent intention to harm,” and “exerting power over another.” These definitions and key words are consistent with the two distinct aspects of bullying identified by Goldsmid and Howie (2014): repetition and a difference in power. Respondents are also in line with the research of Bowen et al. (2008) who state that bullying is one-sided, intentional, and repeated. In contrast, conflict was almost unanimously defined as some form of “disrespectful disagreement” between two or more parties.

Although the survey participants from all four schools identified and defined both bullying and conflict using similar terms, each school differed with regard to the frequency of such incidents. Mound Fort Junior High and Guadalupe School reported “constant” bullying (more than once a month), Midvale Elementary reported seeing bullying “sometimes” (three to six times a school year), and Sandy Elementary said it was seen “rarely” (one to two times per school year).

Despite variance in reports of bullying, each of the schools used a similar approach when addressing the situation, namely, the teachers and staff talked with the students involved and attempted to find a solution. Only four respondents stated that they contact the students’ parents and only eleven state that they involve administration. These statistics show that bullying is often handled exclusively by the teachers and staff, with little to no involvement from parents, school social workers, or the administration. Specifically, teachers reported using the following methods to address bullying: “gather information about the situation,” “basic conflict resolution, then proceed to assist the bullied student,” and “put them together and talk about it.” Ironically, when asked how they respond to conflict, many of the teachers’ answers were similar to their response to bullying. Reports included: “gather information about the conflict,” “talk to all parties involved to work out problems,” and “ teach skills to deal with future conflict.”

While both conflict and bullying may need adult intervention, they should not be dealt with similarly. For instance, as bullying is, by definition, one sided, the victim should not be expected to share the blame or be required to engage in problem-solving. This differs from conflict, which involves multiple parties, all of whom should be held responsible for their actions and should engage in conflict resolution.

When asked what kind of supports would help them in their role with students, over half of our respondents indicated they would like new training, programs, or protocols with regard to bullying and conflict among their students. One teacher requested a “school-wide positive behaviors reinforcement policy, with protocols for rewards and for transgressions so that students understand concrete expectations for everyday behavior.” The united voice of teachers and staff requesting support and change in addressing student behaviors directed our efforts.

As conflict was a constant at all four schools, our plan is to better prepare teachers to handle conflict amongst students. Our long term goal is for students attending Mound Fort Junior High, Guadalupe School, Midvale Elementary, and Sandy Elementary to be able to demonstrate knowledge and application of conflict resolution skills within their respective school settings. To accomplish this, we plan to implement a social skills curriculum to be taught and reinforced by the teachers within the classroom. As a result, teachers will be better able to handle instances of conflict, while referring instances of bullying to the school social workers and administration, who can then work in conjunction with students’ parents. Not only does this better prepare teachers, but it also provides incidents of bullying with requisite attention. Bullying behavior would no longer be akin to a minor conflict amongst students, but would be handled with appropriate severity so as to discourage that type of behavior as an acceptable offense.

Our process objective is that by April 9th, 2015 each social work intern will have met with their Principal, School Social Worker, or School Psychologist. By incorporating various members of the faculty and staff in this process, we will be distributing the responsibility and workload amongst the entire school. At this meeting we will discuss the benefits of incorporating conflict resolution skills into a weekly curriculum and of implementing a professional development class for teachers and staff. Our success will be determined by whether or not we have been able to hold this meeting by April 9th, 2015. A second reason why we have chosen to involve the administration is an attempt to implement what we learn from Pyles (2014), where she informs us that when organizing tactics, it is important to consider “the type of power that organizers wish to break through” (p. 159). We realize that we will need the support of administration at each school if change is to occur.

Our group’s outcome objective is aimed at teaching students the skills necessary to resolve their own conflicts. Our outcome objective is that by the beginning of the 2015-2016 school year, 50% of all teachers at these schools will have completed professional development training on conflict resolution and implemented it into their classroom curriculum, thereby facilitating students to resolve most conflicts independent of teacher mediation. Determining whether or not teachers have established and implemented the curriculum, and evaluating their success, will be carried out by the same individual with whom we met during our initial meeting as part of our process objective.

    Gamble’s (2010) inclusive program development model of community practice seems the most appropriate to meet our goal of having students internalize conflict resolution skills. Our group’s desired outcome is “expansion, redirection, and[/or] new development of programs” aimed at teaching students the skills necessary to resolve their own conflicts, which, in our estimation, would “improve service effectiveness” in schools because it would allow school counselors to focus their efforts on bullying (Gamble, 2010, p. 26, Table 2.1). The systems targeted for change in the inclusive program development model are the “beneficiaries of agency services,” which includes teachers and students,” and this model’s scope of concern is “service development for a specific population” (Gamble, 2010, pp. 26-27), which accurately describes the task we are undertaking. Utilizing this model enables our group to act in the primary roles of advocates, leaders, organizers, planners and assessors, while simultaneously acting in the related roles of spokespeople, visionaries, bridge-builders, trainers, and evaluators (Gamble, 2010, pp. 40-45).

As we begin applying this social change model, we are also mindful that as we are all working in Title 1 schools, we will be faced with issues such as low socioeconomic status, ethnic and cultural diversity, and layers of psychosocial problems. As such, we need to approach our goals using all three lenses of globalization, the increase in multicultural societies, and the expansion of human rights (Gamble, 2010, pp. 31-38). Globalization includes the “exchange and integration of culture [and] technological innovation” (Gamble, 2010, p. 32), which are particular challenges for some of our students who are English Language Learners (ELL). Each of our schools are multicultural in that they are “ethnically, racially, and culturally more mixed” as a result of “voluntary or forced migrations” due to economic factors, war, genocide, famine, or natural disasters (Gamble, 2010, p. 34). Expanding human rights aligns with the social work value and principle of pursuing social change “particularly with and on behalf of vulnerable and oppressed individuals and groups of people” (NASW Code of Ethics, 1996).

In order to develop strategies and tactics conducive to our goal of students capably demonstrating conflict resolution skills, we have used a strategy chart to identify our constituents, allies, opponents, and targets. We concluded that our constituents are the students, their parents, the teachers, and staff who directly interact with the students. Without their cooperation our objectives cannot be met. Our allies are those with an express interest in the safety and well being of the students as it pertains to conflict resolution. In our estimation, this group would consist of parents, school social workers, and potentially teachers willing to implement our proposed systemic changes to conflict resolution. Our opponents could be the administration and many of the teachers. Opposition may stem from the potential cost involved in implementing a new curriculum or a reluctance to invest time in learning a new curriculum at the expense of academic instruction. Teachers may also be opposed to teaching conflict resolution skills because they feel it is the role of the  school counselor.

Having identified our constituents, allies, and opponents, we selected the school social workers, administration, and the teachers as our target population as they will be most affected by this change. Once they have overcome any hesitation or reluctant, our secondary targets will be staff, students, and parents. We want all of the members of our school communities to embrace our proposed changes which will result in an improved ability to form and maintain friendships, as well as improved learning capabilities. This is of vital importance as “children with higher levels of social and behavioral skills actually learn more in school than others” (Jennings & DiPrete, 2010, p. 136).

To formulate our tactics, we looked to both widescope and focused research investigating ways to affect long term change in schools. According to Hargreaves and Goodson (2006), sustainable improvement in education “focuses on what matters,” so that it makes the improvement  “last and spread” beyond the target population and into the future and the community in which they live (p. 35). In a related study, Baker and Foote (2006) state that “sustainability is not simply a matter of how changes or improvements can be maintained within individual schools over time. It also includes how changes within individual schools affect others around them.” (p. 91). While we appreciate the idea of conflict resolution skills being reinforced beyond the walls of our schools through external support from the surrounding community, that challenge seems beyond our reach at this time. At this time, we will focus on the students with whom we work in the hopes that this initial change will create a ripple effect to the greater community.

In our research, we have found an evidenced-based curriculum that we believe could be implemented across all four schools as it applies to both elementary-aged children and adolescents. This program is called The Project ACHIEVE Social Skills Program (Knoff, 2000). The social skills program includes ten core and ten advanced skills, which are organized into four skill areas: prerequisite skills, interpersonal skills, problem-solving skills, and conflict resolution skills (Kilian, Fish, & Maniago, 2007, p. 8). We decided that this program would be most applicable at our schools as we are able to “[tailor] the program to [our] recipients by accounting for age, culture, ethnicity, community, and socioeconomic status of the target population”( Kilian, Fish, & Maniago, 2007, p. 3). We also appreciated that it used group work and role playing to increase students’ ability to implement the skills taught. However, for us, the true selling point for selecting this program was that the study found “consistent decreases in undesirable behaviors across all grades in classroom and non-classroom settings” (Kilian, Fish, & Maniago, 2007, p. 24). If the schools invest in this program, or create something similar, we will then be able to measure the outcome through behavior checklists which will be provided to teachers. We may also use a similar survey as the one distributed for this project to see if teachers report lower instances of conflict amongst their students.

In conclusion, the trend we found in reviewing our surveys was that both conflict and bullying among students are being handled by teachers and staff, and their approach to these divergent problems is, unfortunately, the same. We believe that teachers should be trained to deal with everyday student conflicts and that incidents of bullying should be handled by school social workers and administration. Our long term goal is for students to use conflict resolution skills in their interactions with their peers. Our outcome objective is to have teachers incorporate The Project ACHIEVE Social Skills Program into their weekly curriculum. Our process objective is to meet with our schools’ principal or social worker to discuss the benefits of incorporating such a program. We believe this action plan will create sustainability through teacher implementation and reinforcement with students of the importance of resolving conflicts. By securing the sponsorship of administration, our plan provides the necessary support to teachers and also a pathway for continued evaluation.

References

Baker, M., & Foote, M. (2006). Changing spaces: Urban school interrelationships and the impact of standards-based reform. Educational Administration Quarterly, 42(1), 90-123.

Bowen, J., Ashcraft, P., Jenson, W. R., & Rhode, G. (2008). Learning About Bullying. In The tough kid bully blockers book: 15-minute lessons for preventing and reducing bullying (p. 108). Eugene, OR: Pacific Northwest. Data Services. (n.d.). Retrieved November 26, 2014 from http://www.cayci.osu.edu/data-services/

Gamble, D. N., & Weil, M. (2010). Conceptual frameworks and models for community practice. In Gamble, D.N. & Weil, M. (Eds.), Community practice skills: Local to global perspectives (pp. 24-46). New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

Goldsmid, S., & Howie, P. (2014). Bullying by definition: an examination of definitional components of bullying. Emotional and behavioural difficulties, 19(2), 210-225. doi:10.1080/13632752.2013.844414

Hargreaves, A., & Goodson, I. (2006). Educational change over time? The sustainability and nonsustainability of three decades of secondary school change and continuity. Educational administration quarterly, 42(1), 3-41.

Jennings, J. L., & DiPrete, T. A. (2010). Teacher effects on social and behavioral skills in early elementary school. Sociology of Education, 83(2), 135-159.

Kilian, J. M., Fish, M. C., & Maniago, E. B. (2007). Making schools safe: A system-wide school intervention to increase student prosocial behaviors and enhance school climate. Journal of Applied School Psychology, 23(1), 1-30.                        

Knoff, H.M. (2000). The stop and think social skills program for children and adolescents: Teaching effective interpersonal and self-management skills. (Preschool to early elementary, early elementary to middle elementary, middle to late elementary editions). Tampa, FL: Author.    

National Association of Social Workers, Washington, DC. (1996). Code of ethics of the National Association of Social Workers.

Pyles, L. (2014). Progressive community organizing: Reflective practice in a globalizing world, Second Edition. New York, NY: Routledge.

Assessment Plan!

Social Change Effort Project (SPEC) Assessment Plan

We are beginning the second portion of our Social Justice, Human Rights, and Macro Social Work course with an expanded group. We have maintained former group members Nicole Gordon and Gabrielle Ernest, both with the Canyons School District, and have added new group members Kari Cunningham with Guadalupe School in Salt Lake City and Victoria Choate with the Davis County School District. We are hopeful that the expansion of our group will provide us with a greater volume of data for the possibility of greater reliability and validity. We are also aware of the variability in individual school needs, which may influence selected interventions and strategies as we continue addressing the issues of bullying and conflict resolution among school-age children.

Recruitment process

In consideration of our practicum placements, we are going to administer the survey using one of the following methods: Hand delivery to teachers with a verbal introduction of the survey, distributing surveys individually to teacher mailboxes, or administering surveys verbally during work or lunch breaks. Identifying the most effective method of distribution of surveys in each of our schools can benefit future research.

Number of people to include in the assessment and number of surveys to be conducted

To better assess the bullying and conflict situations in each individual school, we have collectively decided to conduct a survey regarding teachers’ perceptions of these issues. Each group member will distribute 25 surveys at their respective schools. Statistics from the National institute of Health state that 60% of surveys are typically returned. If this statistic holds true we should receive roughly 60 surveys. However, we hope to receive at least the minimum of 20 surveys required for this course.

Time and location of the assessment

Before survey administration, our group will address instructor feedback at week 3. We hope that this feedback will address ways in which we can improve this survey for maximum effectiveness. We will administer the surveys between week 4 and week 6 of the course, so that we can analyze the data between week 6 and 8. We will inform our survey participants that the surveys need to be completed by February 18^th; the surveys will be completed at each school during school hours.

Roles and responsibilities

Each of our group members shall do a general evaluation of her received data and full analysis shall be conducted as a group on March 5^th.

Semi-structured assessment guide

Introductory verbal script

“We are a small group of graduate students in the College of Social Work at the University of Utah. We’re conducting a survey of teachers and staff in Title 1 schools in Salt Lake and Davis Counties regarding their perceptions of bullying and conflicts among their students.

We hope to gather information that will support our teachers, students and families. Your perception is important to us and will help us create interventions to improve students’ abilities to appropriately report bullying and manage conflict. Your feedback will also help us identify a target group of students on whom to focus our efforts for additional bullying help as well as conflict management skills. Both positive and negative comments are helpful.

Your participation in this survey is voluntary and confidential. We estimate this survey will take about 10 minutes of your time.”

Survey Questions

1. What age groups do you work with?

2. How do you define bullying?

3. What do you believe are the common demographics of students who are bullied? (ex: age, ethnicity, sexual orientation/gender identity/gender expression, socioeconomic class, etc.)

4. What do you believe are the common characteristics of students who are bullied? (ex: hygiene, appearance, weight, physical ability, etc.)

5. How frequently do you see incidents of bullying among your students?

            Never

            Rarely (1 to 2 times per school year)

            Sometimes (3 to 6 times per school year)

            Frequently (7 to 12 times per school year)

            Constantly (More than once a month)

6. How do you respond when a student comes to you with a complaint of being bullied?

7. How do you define conflict?

8. What does conflict look like among your students?

9. How frequently do you see incidents of conflict among your students?

            Never

            Rarely (1 to 2 times per school year)

            Sometimes (3 to 6 times per school year)

            Frequently (7 to 12 times per school year)

            Constantly (More than once a month)          

10. What do you believe are the common demographics of students who are involved in conflict? (ex: age, ethnicity, sexual orientation/gender identity/gender expression, socioeconomic class, etc.)

11. What do you believe are the common characteristics of students who are involved in conflict? (ex: hygiene, appearance, weight, physical ability, etc.)

12. How do you respond when approached with student conflict?

Wrap up

“Thank you for your time and dedication to improving our school community!”

Contextualizing the Problem Paper

Our group decided to focus on a problem or issue that affects elementary aged children and their families in Canyons School District, specifically Midvale and Sandy Elementary; both are Title 1 schools located near Midvale, Utah. Midvale Elementary reports indicate a population with about 74% ethnic minorities, 51% English Language Learners, and 88% considered low income. (Midvale, 2013) Sandy Elementary reports, on the other hand, show a population with about 41% ethnic minorities, 22% English Language learners, and 69% considered low income. (Sandy, 2013) Based on this data alone, we could infer that while both schools serve elementary students from Kindergarten through fifth grade (ages five to eleven), their specific needs differ. Our first objective was to identify a common problem whose solution would prove beneficial to both communities.
In Canyons School District, parents, students and teachers participate in an annual survey called the Community and Youth Collaborative Institute (CAYCI). The CAYCI Survey was created by the Ohio State University Social Work Department to focus on the development of school-family-community partnerships that serve to enhance youth development (Data Services, 2014).  This survey has been used by Canyons School District to evaluate Title 1 schools since its implementation in 2012.  Using the results from the most recent surveys, we were able to identify a common issue: we noticed that over the past two years, while students and parents were reporting an increase in bullying, teachers were actually reporting a decrease.
In light of the conflicting data, we decided to focus on this issue.  We began with school wide meetings for teachers and staff to discuss this topic with us, and held focus groups where students identified bullying.  Based on these meetings and focus groups, we came to the conclusion that although many students had reported being bullied, this was not technically the case.  A majority of students we spoke with identified bullying as any instance when someone was mean to them; as a result, many students who simply experienced peer conflict had reported bullying instead.
While their confluence of these two concepts is understandable, peer conflict and bullying are quite distinct.  Specifically, there are “two components [that] separate bullying from normal peer aggression: repetition and a difference in power.” (Goldsmid, Howie, 2014) In addition to this, we also know that “bullying is one sided, intentional, and repeated.”  (Bowen, Ashcraft, Jenson, & Rhode, 2008)  The issue, then, was not that bullying was becoming more rampant.  Rather, the true problem was that bullying was being over reported.   We believe that students, not knowing the difference between bullying and peer conflict, report any situation where a student is unkind as bullying. Furthermore, we believe the likely cause of the recent increase in peer conflict to be the students’ lack of necessary problem-solving skills.
We do not mean to dismiss bullying, as bullying is a critical issue and needs to be taken seriously.   Bullying can cause internalizing problems in children, including insomnia, antisocial behavior, aggression, and psychological distress (Kubisvewski, Fontaine, Hure, Rusch, 2012).  We recognize that bullying is a prevalent problem, as “estimates of childhood bullying reveal that approximately 30% of students engage in overt or relational bullying or are victims of bullying during elementary school.” (Juvonen, Graham, & Schuster (2003) in Jenson, 2010) We also realize that some of the conflicts being reported in both Midvale and Sandy may be the result of previous bullying. For instance, Hanish et al. (2004) showed that young boys who are victimized early in the school year showed contemporaneous angry, aggressive behaviors, possibly reflecting their efforts to establish dominance in a new social group.” (Geisbreicht, 2011)
However, despite the fact that bullying is a real concern, we felt that addressing peer conflict would be more beneficial to the schools as a whole.  The idea that students may engage in peer conflict as a response to past victimization leads us to believe that it is important to address both issues. The need to address both issues is further illustrated by the teachers, who report that a majority of students who come in with complaints of bullying are actually having peer conflicts. Unfortunately, it is difficult for the teachers and administration to handle every conflict to determine if it is an isolated incident or the result of prior bullying.
 In working with this population, we spent a lot of our time talking with students about incidents in which they felt they were being bullied.  After talking with the students, one-on-one as well as in focus groups, we were able to determine that many of the cases of supposed bullying in the classroom and on the playground were actually instances of peer conflict. During the one-on-one sessions, we spent a great deal of time teaching the difference between bullying and conflict; it was a problem that the administration and teachers thought required immediate attention. We also worked on conflict resolution with those students who had the highest need for these skills, so as to improve any altercations either in the classroom or on the playground. We found that helping students to resolve normal peer conflict took a large portion of not only our time, but of the administrators and teachers as well.
 In talking with the administration, teachers, and the school psychologists it was identified that teaching conflict resolution would greatly benefit the schools. Helping our students identify the difference between bullying and conflict, as well as implementing an evidenced based curriculum that can be applied school wide to improve conflict resolution skills, is the challenge that has now been presented to us by the school. We hypothesize that helping students to identify the true definition of bullying may reduce reported incidences.  We also hypothesize that teaching students conflict resolution skills to use with their peers will help them to solve normal childhood disputes that do not need adult attention.  In addition to the benefit for the students, this will allow teachers and administration to focus on addressing actual cases of bullying and more serious cases of peer conflict that do occur.
Conflict resolution skills are important for any child or adult; conflict is something that will occur throughout a child’s life.  Conflict will inevitably happen when there is a large group of individuals, such as at an elementary school.   Teaching conflict resolution skills will not only help each individual child, but will help the schools and the district as a whole.   According to studies done in Turkish Elementary Schools, the implementing of conflict resolution training helped increase social competency skills of the children, and decreased reactive and proactive aggression levels at the schools. (Akgun, Araz, 2014). We hope to see this kind of improvement through the process of implementing conflict resolution skills for the students at Midvale and Sandy. If we do not address this problem, we believe that social competency skills will stay the same or may even decrease, and that aggression could possibly increase.
Of all those involved, the students are most affected by this issue, as can see by the fact that they are the ones reporting high levels of bullying. This is most likely due to the long-term consequences of bullying and the effect it has on the “period of rapid social, emotional, cognitive, and personality development during which intervention and prevention programs may have considerable impact.” (Giesbrecht, 2011) This, coupled with a lack of conflict resolution skills, will follow students into adulthood and continue to affect their lives if adequate measures are not taken while they are young. We have asked the professionals at our schools if they have been able to identify a particular group of their student population that seems to be most affected by bullying and conflict. Reports from school professionals claim that they most often deal with issues that involve students who are below level in their academic assessments, students with mental illnesses, students from single parent homes, and students from ethnic minorities.
In creating our curriculum for this assignment, we will ensure to make it applicable for all levels of academic performance and be sensitive to these target groups. We believe that this type of program, as it improves the social part of our students’ lives, will also improve their classroom behavior positively impact their ability to learn. Supporting research states that when “elementary school counselors recognize their contributions in supporting student academic achievement through comprehensive service delivery. Therefore, counselors must be prepared to advocate for this type of broad program focus.” (Barna, 2011) Considering these points, it is believed that the best method to implement for our target group is a school wide curriculum delivered to all students, defining the difference between bullying and conflict, how to resolve conflict with peers, and identifying safe adults in case bullying or more serious conflicts need to be addressed. This program should bolster the personal and social development of our students and, in turn, should improve their academic performance.
The teachers, administration, school psychologist, and school social work intern will be collaborating to find appropriate ways to implement this school wide curriculum. The belief and hope is that these preventative measures will not only improve the lives of our students, but will also allow for more time to focus on cases of bullying and more serious peer conflict. An additional hope of the teachers’ is that they will be able to spend more time doing what they do best, which is teach. If we cannot implement an effective curriculum, it is likely that teachers and other school professionals will continue to use an unnecessarily large portion of their time helping students to mediate problems. We recognize that this puts the school professionals as being the second population that will be most affected by this issue.
Another population that will be affected is the parents of our students. Thus far we only have information from parents from the CAYCI surveys. The school would like us to implement our curriculum into an effective discipline class that we will be offering to parents next semester. However, the administration at the district level has some misgivings. This is understandable, as the class that is offered is from a curriculum called 1-2-3 Magic and should not be altered. We are currently in the process of finding a solution that would include giving parents a handout of what we have taught their students in school about bullying and conflict resolution so that they can have access to this information as well.
We feel it is critical that we include parents in this process. We know that the parents have been a part of the CAYCI survey, but would like to keep in mind that they are an integral part of their students’ lives. As a parent they will have an impact on the reinforcement of the curriculum that we teach the students throughout the school year. We would like more parent involvement to keep our curriculum consistent throughout the year, and especially in the home. We will be finding ways to communicate effectively with parents to foster increased participation in this process. One concern we have in particular are the limitations we have due to a language barrier. We will be working with many families who speak other languages and we do not want them to feel excluded. We realize that all of our parents are stakeholders in this endeavor.
Stakeholders within the public school system include: students, parents, teachers, coaches, paraprofessionals, building-level administrators, and district-level administrators. (Upreti, 2010) In the two schools we are working with, stakeholders would also include school psychologists, school social workers, and community partners such as Boys & Girls Club, Utah Food Bank, and Sealants for Smiles. For this particular issue we will focus on the three stakeholders that are surveyed in the CAYCI survey: parents, students, and teachers.

References
Akgun, S., & Araz, A. (2014). The Effects of Conflict Resolution Education on Conflict Resolution Skills, Social Competence, and Aggression in Turkish Elementary School Students. Journal Of Peace Education, 11(1), 30-45.
Barna, J. E. (2011). How Important is Personal/ Social Development to Academic Achievement? The Elementary School Counselor's Perspective. Professional School Counseling, 14(3), 242-249.
Bowen, J., Ashcraft, P., Jenson, W., & Rhode, G. (2008). Learning About Bullying. In The tough kid bully blockers book: 15-minute lessons for preventing and reducing bullying (p. 108). Eugene, OR: Pacific Northwest.
Data Services. (n.d.). Retrieved November 26, 2014, from http://www.cayci.osu.edu/data-services/

Giesbrecht, G., Leadbeater, B., & Macdonald, S. (2011). Child and context characteristics in trajectories of physical and relational victimization among early elementary school children. Development and Psychopathology, 23(1), 239-252.

Goldsmid, S., & Howie, P. (2014). Bullying by definition: an examination of definitional components of bullying. Emotional & Behavioural Difficulties, 19(2), 210-225. doi:10.1080/13632752.2013.844414
Jenson, J., Dieterich, W., Brisson, D., Bender, K., & Powell, A. (2010). Preventing Childhood Bullying: Findings and Lessons From the Denver Public Schools Trial. Research on Social Work Practice, 509-517.
Kubiszewski, V., Fontaine, R., Huré, K., & Rusch, E. (2013). [Cyber-bullying in adolescents: associated psychosocial problems and comparison with school bullying]. L'encéphale, 39(2), 77-84. doi:10.1016/j.encep.2012.01.008
Sandy School. (2013, October 3). Retrieved November 29, 2014, from http://www.canyonsdistrict.org/all-documents/assessment/results/elementary/sandy/3804-sandy-ele-school-ucas-report-2013/file
Midvale School. (2013, October 3). Retrieved November 29, 2014, from http://www.canyonsdistrict.org/all-documents/assessment/results/elementary/midvale/3796-midvale-ele-school-ucas-report-2013/file
Upreti, G., Liaupsin, C., & Koonce, D. (2010). Stakeholder Utility: Perspectives on School-wide Data for Measurement, Feedback, and Evaluation. Education and Treatment of Children, 33(4), 497-511.

Faculty Meeting!

We got a 15 minute spotlight at the faculty meeting for November! In this meeting we shared the results of our focus groups. A nice pat on the back for our teachers, since they are the people who suggested that the term "bully" might be overused within our schools. Very few teachers were surprised when we shared that a majority of the students thought that a bully was anyone who was being mean. We asked for feedback from the teachers of what information they would like to receive as we move forward. Teachers would like to see an outline of the steps we teach our students so that they can be consistent throughout the school. They also suggested that we implement a lesson where we talk about the difference between bullying and conflict. These lesson plans will be e-mailed to the school psychologist who will review them, make any necessary edits, forward them on to the administration to be approved, and then finally the teachers will receive this perfected copy. Looks like we are ready to do some more research and a lot of work!

Time for the Research

After viewing the results of the CAYCI surveys  and doing focus groups about bullying and conflict we have decided it is time to do the research.  We agree that bullying is not the problem at the schools and the children do not need any bullying interventions.  However, we do think that the children would benefit learning more about conflict resolution.  We have started to research different conflict resolution interventions that would teach the children what conflict is and how to resolve it if they are having issues with other children.  From the research we have gathered there is quite a bit of activities to do with children to teach them conflict resolution.  We are going to continue doing more research and then come up with a plan of action for our interventions.

How Do You Do a Pretest for Kindergarten?

We, the school psychologist and myself, wanted to find out what our students already know about conflict and bullying. However, we are working with Kindergarten - 5th graders, so how to do that? We decided the best plan of action would be to run some focus groups. We didn't want to take away from classroom education and after brainstorming some different ideas we went to the library to see if we could use some of the library time. The librarians were excited to be a part of our plan and gave us the first 10 - 15 minutes of library time. This allowed us to meet with each classroom and all the students! (Minus those that were absent of course.)


Here is what we found:
Kindergarten - Every class thought that we were asking what bowling was. (They sound similar don't they?) 1 or 2 students in each of the 4 classes were able to state that a bully is someone who is mean. The classes identified parents and teachers as someone you would tell if someone was being mean to you. They had no idea what conflict was or what to do about it.

1st Grade - Every class described a bully as someone who was mean to other kids. They stated that if someone was being mean that you should tell your teacher. They had no idea what conflict was or what to do about it.

2nd Grade - Every class described a bully as someone who is mean. They reported that you should tell a teacher or another adult if someone was being mean to you. One class was able to identify conflict as something that happens in a story. They were not sure what to do about conflict except maybe to keep reading the book. The rest of the classes were unsure of what conflict was or what they should do about it.

3rd Grade - This grade related that bullying was when someone was being mean to someone else. 2 of the 4 classes were able to identify conflict as a fight between people. They reported that for either situation you should tell a teacher or another adult.

4th Grade - This grade stated that bullying was when someone was being mean to someone else multiple times. All classes described conflict as a disagreement or fight between people. They also reported that in either situation they would tell a teacher or another adult.

5th Grade - This grade stated that bullying was when someone was being mean to someone else and the other individual was not being mean back. All classes described conflict as a fight or disagreement between groups or people. This grade also realized that they may be able to work it out on their own without an adult, but had difficulty describing a way in which to do so. One class identified rho sham bo (rock, paper, scissors) as a way to decide who might go first or get their way in a disagreement.