1 Program Development Drafting Assignment 1 I would like to design a program that will educate students at an early age about bullying. This program will prevent those children and adolescents who already suffer from mental health disorders to have the reassurance that they can be in a safe learning environment and not have to worry about their protection or wellbeing. I truly am an advocate for victims of bullying because not only was I bullied myself at a young age, but I have current clients in elementary and middle school who are being verbally and physically abused on school grounds. Additionally, although I do my part as a therapist to provide psychoeducation, teach individuals to use their voice, provide coping skills, and utilize other interventions, unfortunately, I cannot control what is going on when my clients are at home or at school. Bullying victims have a variety of negative outcomes, including poor social and academic adjustment, sadness, and anxiety (Evans et al., 2014). Bullying is a concern in schools and communities throughout the United States and around the world, but there is ambiguity about the best effective techniques for preventing it and treating its effects on children and youth. Parents, professionals, school faculty, and other community members may help children avoid bullying by talking about it, fostering a safe school environment, and developing a communitywide bullying prevention strategy to minimize the damaging impacts of bullying, thus, creating a secure environment. In a way to construct a program, facts and information are gathered, and the situation is assessed to better understand what the problem is and what can be done to address it (Kettner et al., 2017). To gather information, I will employ questionnaire tools for students to report their current concerns and problems at school, and for us to track the severity of bullying in the school environment. Questionnaires are one type of quantitative data collection instrument. Questionnaires often pose closed-ended questions, can be measured statistically, and are simpler 2 to distribute in order to obtain a bigger sample size (McLeod, 2017). Adults underestimate the prevalence of bullying because children seldom report it and it frequently occurs while adults are not there, thus bullying may be assessed via anonymous questionnaires, which can offer a clear picture of what is going on. Some of the known or expected technical challenges in addressing bullying is that even if schools implement bullying prevention or awareness programs, bullying practices will persist if the programs are unsuccessful. According to Grisham (2015), anti-bullying interventions may temporarily help to minimize bullying behaviors but may not be powerful enough to entirely eliminate the problem. It is significant to understand that known legality issues amongst this topic as well. According to the United States Department of Health and Human Services (2016), each state treats bullying differently through legislation and model policies. When a problem is not properly handled, the Office for Civil Rights of the United States Department of Education and the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice may give aid; however, no federal legislation expressly addresses bullying (U.S. Department of Health and Services, 2016). According to the United States Department of Health and Human Services (2016), bullying can also be associated with discriminatory harassment, which is protected by federal civil rights legislation administered by the United States Departments of Education and Justice. Whenever there is bullying, schools are required by law to effectively manage behaviors that are severe, hurtful, detrimental, or create a hostile atmosphere at school (U.S. Department Health and Services, 2016). Unfortunately, this is not always the case, and the seriousness of the bullying is clearly not stressed enough, because the rates of mental health disorders due to bullying is only increasing. Bullying behaviors can be caused by a variety of factors, including but not limited to peer influence, poor living situations, and social hierarchy (Grisham, 2015). Due et al. (2009) 3 investigated the socioeconomic distribution of teenage bullying exposure globally and documented the role of the macroeconomic environment. Children or adolescents who attend schools or reside in countries with a big socio-economic disparity are more likely to be bullied (Due et al., 2009). According to Ditch the Label (2019), some of the causes of bullying include stress and trauma, violent behaviors, poor self-esteem, being bullied, a terrible family life, limited access to quality education, and relationships. Furthermore, Matthews et al. (2017) found that being a bully as a child is correlated with higher stress, aggressive behavior, and poorer health behavior patterns in adulthood, whereas being a victim of childhood bullying is associated with lower socioeconomic resources, less optimism, and more substantial mistreatment in adulthood. It is critical that children who are predisposed to becoming bullies or victims are identified at an early age in order to assist prompt prevention of bullying and victimization. It has been established that adolescents from lower socioeconomic status (SES) households are more likely to be victimized and endure more severe long-term mental health implications as a result of this victimization than victims from more wealthy social situations (Jansen et al., 2012). Other research has verified that victimization rates are greater among children from low socioeconomic backgrounds, as evidenced by their parents' low-skill employment or low educational attainment, a lack of financial resources, and single motherhood (Jansen et al., 2012). Bullying, like victimization, appears to be socially structured by parental socioeconomic position. School neighborhood SES, in addition to home SES, may predict bullying behavior because school neighborhood factors, such as criminal activity, support networks and discipline, and similar factors are likely to impact children's behavior. To monitor the program once it is active, I will establish a bully helpline for individuals to call at any time where they can share their concerns about what is going on at the school campus, and additional further details to be inquired. Those who are advocates for individual 4 well-being as well as professionals in the field of mental health can volunteer to work on the helpline. Additionally, an informative presentation educating about bullying should be given every 3 months in schools who have students who are more vulnerable and susceptible to bullying behaviors. A bully box will be passed around to the students after every presentation where the children may drop a message to notify teachers and faculty members about any current concerns about bullying with details about the incident, and this may even address the issue of how some children may be reluctant or afraid to report a bullying occurrence. After administrators receive all the messages, the school faculty will be prompted to give feedback utilizing the resources given from the presentation. A survey will be also given to the school administrators after every presentation as well for them to rate and provide any feedback for future presentations. The feedback provided is hoped to be meaningful and related to the usefulness and quality of the bullying prevention program. Input from experts, teachers, faculty, as well as students themselves will be utilized and incorporated into the development to improve the quality of the program and its content. References Ditch the Label. (2019). Why do people bully? The scientific reasons. Retrieved from https://us.ditchthelabel.org/why-do-people-bully/ Due, P., Merlo, J., Harel-Fisch, Y., Damsgaard, M. T., Holstein, B. E., Hetland, J., … Lynch, J. (2009). Socioeconomic inequality in exposure to bullying during 5 adolescence: A comparative, cross-sectional, multilevel study in 35 countries. American Journal of Public Health, 9(5), 907–14. Evans, C. B., Fraser, M. W., & Cotter, K. L. (2014). The effectiveness of school-based bullying prevention programs: A systematic review. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 19(5), 532-544. Grisham, K. (2015). Current anti-bullying programs prove to be ineffective. Retrieved from http://lohslakeviews.com/current-anti-bullying-programs-prove-to-beineffective Kettner, P.M., Moroney, R.M., & Martin, L.L. (2017). Designing and managing programs: An effectiveness-based approach (5th ed.). Sage. Jansen, P. W., Verlinden, M., Dommisse-van Berkel, A., Mieloo, C., van der Ende, J., Veenstra, R., ... & Tiemeier, H. (2012). Prevalence of bullying and victimization among children in early elementary school: Do family and school neighbourhood socioeconomic status matter?. BMC public health, 12(1), 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-12-494 Matthews, K., Jennings, J., Lee, L., & Pardini, D. (2017). Bullying and being bullied in childhood are associated with different psychosocial risk factors for poor physical health in men. Psychological Science, 28(6), 808–821. Mcleod, S. (2017). Psychology research ethics. Simply Psychology. Retrieved from https://www.simplypsychology.org/Ethics.html U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. (2016). Stop bullying. Retrieved from https://www.stopbullying.gov/news/media/facts/
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