Family Matters: Bullying Prevention and Intervention in School Communities

Format

Individual Presentation

Presenters

Kanessa Miller Doss, TUFollow
Sherrionda H. Crawford, Troy UniversityFollow

First Presenter's Institution

Troy University

First Presenter’s Email Address

kmdoss@troy.edu

First Presenter's Brief Biography

Dr. Kanessa Miller Doss is an Associate Professor of Psychology and COE Director of Operations- Montgomery Campus at Troy University. She is a Nationally Certified School Psychologist (NCSP) and National Certified Counselor (NCC). Dr. Doss is also a certified School Counselor and School Psychologist in the state of Alabama. She has nine years of experience as a public-school educator. Dr. Doss is also a certified QPR Gatekeeper in Suicide Prevention Training instructor. She is a member and board member of several professional organizations. Her research interests are social-emotional functioning with an emphasis on school/college campus violence, bullying, school psychology advocacy, youth suicide, and accessibility issues.

Second Presenter's Institution

Troy University

Second Presenter’s Email Address

scrawford@troy.edu

Second Presenter's Brief Biography

Dr. Sherrionda H. Crawford is an Associate Professor and Department Chair of the Department of Counseling, Rehabilitation & Interpreter Training at Troy University. She is a Nationally Certified Counselor (NCC), credentialed as both a Licensed Professional Counselor Supervisor (LPC-S) in Georgia and Alabama, as well as a Certified School Counselor in the state of Alabama. Prior to becoming a professor at Troy, she provided valuable counseling services to children and adults in both in clinical and school counseling settings. Dr. Crawford actively volunteers for the National Board of Certified Counselors (NBCC) as a scholarship reviewer and mentor. Her research interests include trends in school counseling to include interpersonal violence and suicide prevention, as well as skill acquisition for counselors-in-training.

Location

Session Four Breakouts (Plimsoll)

Strand #1

Health: Mental & Physical Health

Strand #2

Hands: Safety & Violence Prevention

Relevance

Bullying prevention and intervention efforts are influenced by the critical roles of families. Literature depicts correlations between parenting/guardian factors such as close relationships, parental/guardian attitudes, discipline styles and school/community connections with children’s involvement as a victim or bully-victim. This presentation relates directly to the “HEALTH”: Mental & Physical Health, “HANDS”: Safety & Violence Prevention, and “HOME”: Family & Community Engagement Developing strands.

Brief Program Description

One of the most detrimental types of school violence is bullying. Family education can play a crucial role in bullying prevention and intervention initiatives in school communities. This interactive session aims to encourage family involvement in bullying prevention and intervention by offering educators, mental health professionals, and community agencies essential information and resources to share with parents and caregivers, plus a roundtable discussion to explore activities to support families in their anti-bullying efforts.

Summary

The prevalence of both traditional bullying and cyberbullying is rising despite the increased media attention, according to prevention tools and anti-bullying literature available in the United States. Victimization, perpetration, and witnessing of bullying are all associated with negative behavioral, psychological, and educational outcomes for young people, such as below average academic performance, mental health issues, suicidality, and school shootings (Bradshaw, 2015; Holt et. al, 2009; Hornby, 2016). Bullying may begin in early childhood schooling and continue into the elementary school years. Then, bullying may reach its height in middle school (Rigby, 2008; Hornby, 2016)., frequently decline in high school, but may also persist into adulthood (Trépanier et. al., 2015; Hornby, 2016).

Bullying, repeated physical, verbal or psychological aggression designed to harm, humiliate, or intimidate a weaker person (Olweus, 2010), is a major concern for students, educators, parents and community. The School Crime Supplement (2020) to the National Crime Victimization Survey found 22% of students ages 12-18 reported being victims of traditional bullying and 16% of 9^th-12^th graders reported being bullied electronically. The Youth Risk Behavior Survey (2019) found that 19.5% of students were bullied at school and 15.7% were bullied via technology.

This presentation aims to provide participants with an introduction to bullying prevalence, warning signs, and targeted populations with elevated risks. Second, the session with describe the significance of family interactions (particularly parents/caregivers) in anti-bullying programs and address ways in which parents and caregivers can actively work to prevent or intervene with bullying incidents. After the completion of this session, participants will receive a list of evidence-based bullying prevention programs with parent/caregiver components and a table of online resources for families.

Evidence

Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory (1977) has been utilized to understand and describe the phenomenon of bullying. The Social-ecological systems perspective is an adaptation of Bronfenbrenner’s theory; it conceptualizes that patterns of behavior such as bullying are influenced not only by individual factors, but also by what the ecological model has identified as systems “of influence” (Espelage & Swearer, 2004).

Research studies support parent/caregiver an integral component of a comprehensive anti-bullying program (Lester et al., 2017). The effectiveness of anti-bullying intervention programs was found to be highly correlated with child- and parent-related aspects, such as parenting style, children's empathy, and parent-child interactions about bullying. A meta-analysis by Chen et al. (2021) gave evidence to improve policy and practice for effectively enabling parent/caregiver involvement in bullying behavior reduction and to boost parent-child communication regarding bullying as well as parenting abilities.

References:

Bradshaw, C. P. (2015). Translating research to practice in bullying prevention. American Psychologist, 70(4), 322-332.

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1977). Toward an experimental ecology of human development. American Psychologist, 32, 513–531.

Center for Disease Control and Prevention. (2019). Youth Risk Behavior Survey. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/data/yrbs/pdf/2019/su6901-H.pdf.

Chen, Q., Zhu, Y., & Chui, W. H. (2021). A meta-analysis on effects of parenting programs on bullying prevention. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 22(5), 1209–1220. https://doi.org/10.1177/1524838020915619

Espelage, D. L., & Swearer, S. M. (2004). Introduction: A social-ecological framework of bullying among youth. In D. L. Espelage & S. M. Swearer (Eds.), Bullying in American schools: A social-ecological perspective on prevention and intervention (pp. 1–12). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Holt, M. K., Kantor, G. K., & Finkelhor, D. (2009). Parent/child concordance about bullying involvement and family characteristics related to bullying and peer victimization. Journal of School Violence, 8, 42- 63. doi: 10.1080/15388220802067813

Hornby, G. (2016). Bullying: An ecological approach to intervention in schools. Preventing School Failure, 60(3), 222-230.

Lester, L., Pearce, N., Waters, S. et al. (2017). Family involvement in a whole-school bullying intervention: Mothers’ and fathers’ communication and influence with children. Journal Children and Family Studies, 26, 2716–2727. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-017-0793-6

Olweus, D. (2010). Understanding and researching bullying. In S.R. Jimerson, S.M. Swearer, & D.L. Espelage’ (Eds.), Handbook of bullying in schools (pp. 9-34) New York, NY:Routledge.

Rigby, K. (2008). Children and Bullying: How Parents and Educators Can Reduce Bullying at School. Wiley-Blackwell, Boston, MA.

Trépanier, S., Fernet, C., & Austin, S. (2015). A longitudinal investigation of workplace bullying, basic need satisfaction, and employee functioning. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 20(1), 105-116. doi:10.1037/a003772

U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, School Crime Supplement (SCS) to the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), 2020. Retrieved from https://bjs.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh236/files/media/document/iscs20.pdf

Learning Objective 1

Identify the components of Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory particularly with the relations of parental/caregiver interactions to Bronfenbrenner’s Microsystem and address ways in which parents and caregivers can actively work to prevent or intervene with bullying incidents.

Learning Objective 2

Select evidenced-based bullying prevention and intervention resources for parents, caregivers, and children.

Learning Objective 3

Brainstorm parent and caregiver education and engagement activities to reduce bullying and support effective interventions.

Keyword Descriptors

bullying, prevention, intervention, family education, parents, guardians, anti-bullying

Presentation Year

2023

Start Date

3-7-2023 8:30 AM

End Date

3-7-2023 9:45 AM

Recommended Citation

Miller Doss, Kanessa and Crawford, Sherrionda H., "Family Matters: Bullying Prevention and Intervention in School Communities" (2023). National Youth Advocacy and Resilience Conference. 64.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/nyar_savannah/2023/2023/64