Responding to incidents of bullying primary school

transcript

"Developing Strength and Resilience in Children"

1-2 November 2010

Day 2 13:10 – 14:00

Responding to incidents of bullying in the primary school:

Solution-focused support groups

Sue Young

sue@young.karoo.co.uk 2

You may need to tell me to slow down!

Listen out out for anything that may need

translating…

If you are unsure, no doubt there‟s others,

so please just interrupt me…

Solution-focused scale:

How we want school to be instead. Our best hopes for relationships in school…

A friendly, supportive and safe community …

Lots of bullying, all the time…

However…… bullying

Even in the most friendly, safe and supportive schools there is always the possibility that bullying will happen

So we still need effective ways to deal with it

Individual interventions:

• Solution-focused support groups (primary)

• Solution-focused conversations (secondary)

Successful past

In pairs:

Tell your partner about a time when you

successfully intervened to stop bullying…

What was important in making it successful?

• Most bullying in schools is short-lived

• Schools are generally successful at reducing

or stopping bullying

• Sometimes they need something more

powerful…

Groups had been used before:

• Anatol Pikas (‘Farsta’ Method, Common Concern)

• No Blame approach (Maines & Robinson)

• Support group approach (me!)

A solution-focused intervention

Solution-focused practice

• Describing the preferred future

• Recognising the successful past

• Appreciating existing strengths

• Doing more of what works

• The Parks Primary School in Hull

• Parents unhappy – thought bullying was

frequent & the school was doing

nothing

• Trained non-teaching staff to use

support groups

• Pupils who had been in support groups

were asked to give their feedback

Transcript Jodie & Roxanne

Video Jodie

Setting up a support group:

Interview the child who needs support to:

• Identify members of the support group

– pupils s/he finds difficult

– pupils who are around at the time

– any friends / potential friends

• Explain the next step, generating optimism

• Arrange to review

Convene the group to:

• Aim - „ to help me make X happier in school‟

• Raise empathy from their own experiences

• Ask for their suggestions

• Compliment their ideas

• Admire their group plan

• Arrange to review

(NB The group does not include the target child)

Review with the child a week

later:

• Ask how things are going

• Compliment them for any improvement /

success

• Arrange review or leave it open

Review with group to:

• Ask how things are going

• Compliment individuals for their help

• Compliment the group for success

• Thanks and appreciation

• Arrange review or leave it open

Roxanne

Video Roxanne

• Parents kept informed throughout

Support groups: outcomes

in „difficult‟ cases:

In a review of the first 50 support groups:

• 80% bullying stopped straight away

• 14% stopped between 1st & 5th meeting

• 6% improved but re-referred

• The traditional way of dealing with

bullying is having an investigation and

then punish the „bully‟

• So what‟s better about using a support

group?

Effective intervention

• Bullying stops

• Fast

• Longer term effect

• Accessible to school staff

• Time efficient

• Parental support

• Inclusive

• No „telling tales‟

Solution focused support groups

– „Solution key‟

– Gets beyond, rather than solves, the

problem

Secondary

Constraints on using a support group

Solution Focused Support

Groups

• Used an example

application of SF by

Peter De Jong &

Insoo Kim Berg in

the 3rd edition of

“Interviewing for

Solutions”

What’s different?

• Anti-bullying focusing on POTENTIAL

• Appreciates what staff and students are doing already in schools

• SF strategies for whole school, classroom & individuals

• Now in Swedish!!

Thank-you

To tell me about something you are doing, or

if you think I may be able to help in any

sue@young.karoo.co.uk

Responding to incidents of bullying primary school

Health & Medicine