Appendix B

Information-Gathering from the Field

SITE VISIT OVERVIEW

As part of the study charge, the committee conducted a site visit to a northeastern city.¹ The location enabled the study staff to draw participants from a wide and diverse variety of school districts, community-based organizations, and philanthropies. The site visit included a series of four group interviews with the following types of individuals: (1) school personnel; (2) representatives from community-based organizations; (3) representatives from the philanthropic community; and (4) young adults between the ages of 18-26 who may have experienced examples of bullying in their schools, communities, or on-line when they were younger. Individuals were recruited through purposeful sampling.

The purpose of the site visit was to provide the committee with an opportunity for place-based learning about bullying prevention programs and best practices with a goal of identifying characteristics of promising initiatives, strategies, and opportunities for feasible change, as well as understanding ongoing challenges. Questions related to participants’ experiences with bullying and peer victimization were asked to help committee members and staff better identify characteristics of promising initiatives, strategies, and opportunities for prevention, as well as to understand ongoing challenges. The focus group interviews were not intended to be a

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¹ The name of the city is not identified to protect the confidentiality of the focus group participants.

comprehensive research effort but served as an important complement to the committee’s other information-gathering activities and approaches.

Participating Groups

Below is a listing of the relevant characteristics of the individuals who participated in the four focus groups/interviews:

School Personnel

• Guidance counselor of a local middle school
• Principal of a local high school
• Bullying prevention consultant
• Manager of a school-based research institute

Community-Based Service Providers

• Program manager of a local community-based organization
• Program coordinator of a local community-based organization
• Youth mentor of a local community-based organization
• Senior supervisor of a community-based organization

Philanthropic Organizations

• Senior program officer of a local foundation
• Program officer of a local foundation
• Senior program officer of a local foundation
• President of a local foundation

Young Adults

• Recent high school graduate
• Recent college graduate

Key Themes from the Site Visit

Overall Key Messages²

• Bullying is a public health issue.
• The definition of bullying is still a struggle. Bullying is not well defined.
• Although much has been done on bullying prevention, much work needs to be done.

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² These overall messages represent themes that emerged across all the groups in the focus groups.

• It is important to educate parents on bullying and encourage them to take action.
• It is important to include parents in bullying prevention programs.
• There is no specific program for the child who bullies.
• Bullying doesn’t just happen in schools; it happens in school yards, playgrounds, at home—everywhere.

Key Messages from School Personnel³

• Evidence-based practices are not always best practices. Evidence-based practices cannot always be applied in a real world. There is a disconnect between the practice of interventions and the skills needed to implement them.
• Every adult in the school is responsible for bullying prevention.
• The real motivation for bullying prevention is to ensure a high level of learning for any student. Any student who comes to school should have a good environment to learn. A student who comes to school worrying about bullying is not in a position to learn and does not feel safe.
• There is no program or intervention for the child who bullies (perpetrator). The resources for children who bully are lacking. Discipline actions are mostly used.
• Disciplinary measures that are punitive in nature are not very effective.
• Any student has the potential to be a perpetrator of antisocial behavior.
• It is important to train adults to intervene appropriately, address the specific behavior, and then follow up with the student who has been bullied.
• There are still some antiquated resources that schools hold on to in bullying prevention.
• The goal of bullying prevention programs are to: (1) stop the behavior as it is occurring, and (2) prevent future incidents of the same behavior.
• Bullying is human behavior.
• Funding for bullying prevention programs is moving more toward evidence-based programming.
• The community-based programs are not always synced with the evidence-based programs going on in the schools. There is a need to bring school-based programs to community-based organizations that provide services in schools.

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³ These key messages represent themes that emerged from the School Personnel focus group.

• A lot of students do not get health services that they need because their parents do not work and they do not have health insurance.
• Program evaluation is important because it enables educators to strengthen the quality of existing programs.
• Bullying prevention successes include (1) breaking the stigma around bullying and other antisocial behaviors and increasing the level of education and awareness among children; (2) shifting the norm and creating common expectations with teachers, students, parents, and community members; (3) creating greater parental awareness about bullying behavior; and (4) using data to drive decisions.
• Bullying prevention challenges include (1) lack of time and human resources in the day for pro-social activities; (2) the use of antiquated resources, such as victim blaming and peer mediation, that are being used in schools; (3) lack of culturally responsive leadership in schools; and (4) confusion about cyberbullying and what occurs at home on social media and how that affects the school environment.

Key Messages from the Community-Based Service Providers⁴

• The consequences of bullying on the child who is bullied include isolation, lack of self-esteem, feelings of not being accepted, anger, being withdrawn, truancy, and poor eating habits.
• Bullying is brought up about 80 percent of the time as one of the main reasons for children not wanting to attend school, dropping out of school, or transferring to a charter school. Children who bully others have issues of anxiety, lack self-confidence, and are looking for ways to be loved.
• The child who bullies needs attention just as much as the child who is bullied.
• Some children who are bullied end up bullying other children as their way of expressing anger.
• It is important for researchers to pay attention to practice-based evidence and not just evidence-based practice.
• It is important for parents to model appropriate behaviors and believe in treating others with respect.
• It is challenging to know the effective ways of dealing with the child who bullies.

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⁴ These key messages represent themes that emerged from the Community-based Service Providers focus group.

• There is no clear path for fostering partnerships between community service providers and school districts.
• There is not enough capacity to handle the issue of cyberbullying since most of the time, service providers do not even know what is going on in the virtual world.
• Bullying prevention programs are not evenly distributed. There are disparities in accessing available programs.
• In bullying prevention, it is important to think about culture and socioeconomic backgrounds and not just race.
• Bullying prevention successes include both the creation of awareness of the issue as well as increased tolerance of differences among children and youth.
• Bullying prevention challenges include (1) a lack of access to treatment services; (2) poor coordination of care and services; (3) promoting information sharing and awareness about the issue of bullying; (4) lack of a good resource pool or resource list where children who bully and children who are bullied could be referred to for help; and (5) lack of relationships and partnerships with other stakeholders.

Key Messages from the Philanthropic Organizations⁵

• Bullying is certainly a problem in schools and it is a concern of the philanthropic community.
• School programs have to be evidence-based before they can be funded.
• It is often hard to assess the impact of bullying prevention interventions.
• Bullying prevention is complex and requires a larger strategy from different disciplines and stakeholders to address the issue at different levels.
• There is a disconnect in terms of messaging and resources at the school level between the superintendent, the school board, and then the actual teachers. The quality of school leadership matters in whether bullying prevention works.
• It is a challenge to bring all the stakeholders in bullying prevention together.
• It is important for the community to understand the real impacts and implications of bullying.

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⁵ These key messages represent themes that emerged from the Philanthropic Organizations focus group.

• Philanthropic organizations invest in bullying prevention programs because of the following:
  • Children have a right to be safe and comfortable as much as adults do. It is the responsibility of adults to keep children safe and healthy.
  • It is a requirement of a civil society.
  • Bullying can turn into a lifetime of behavioral and health issues.
  • Bullying can present a higher cost to society in the long run if not prevented early.
• The challenges faced in funding bullying prevention programs include
  • A lot of adults in the school system that are involved with children and bullying prevention think that some amount of bullying is normal. Schools have to realize that there is an issue and own up to it.
  • Lack of commitment from schools and teachers implementing bullying prevention programs.
  • There are so many programs out there that are evidence-based, but it is a challenge to know which ones are effective.

Key Messages from the Young Adults⁶

• Bullying someone emotionally and mentally puts them down.
• Bullying is an awkward subject to talk about but everyone has experienced or witnessed bullying before.
• Some adults see bullying as normal.
• Children pride themselves on how they are presented in social media. Social media can have both negative and positive impacts and it depends on the age range and who you are following or talking to. Videos and fights online could be very disturbing.
• Different forms of bullying are experienced throughout life, and people bully because they want to get a social reward or they want to retaliate.
• A lot of children who witness bullying do not like the bullying, and they may not know what to do to stop it.
• When bullying happens, the bystanders feel helpless, get the feeling that bullying is a way of life, and are scared that it could happen to them tomorrow.
• Bullying programs work if they are culturally receptive, the leaders of the program are committed, and they involve positive reinforcement from peers.

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⁶ These key messages represent themes that emerged from the Young Adults focus group.

• Bullying can be prevented by encouraging bystanders to stand up against the child who bullies, educating parents and children on the consequences of bullying, educating children on how to deal with bullying, and having more children as role models to talk about their experiences.
• Young adults can help children who are targets of bullying by rallying around them, by identifying and understanding what makes them easy targets, and by being a friend to them.
• Young adults can help children who bully by asking them what is going on in their lives and understanding what they are going through.

GROUP INTERVIEW AGENDA

June 12, 2015

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