Psychoeducational Program for Bullying and Harassment

This article discusses the need for a psychoeducational program to address bullying and harassment in elementary schools. It explores the objectives of the program, provides a literature review on the topic, and discusses school-based bullying programs. The program aims to create a positive psychosocial climate and promote empathy and equality among students.

Running head: PSYCHOEDUCATIONAL PROGRAM
Bullying and harassment
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Editorial
Respected school principal,
This letter is to draw your attention to one of the greatest social issue that our nation is
facing, bullying, discrimination and harassment. One of the greatest threats to the social and
psychological health of the teens and adolescents are being affected tremendously by the
continuous and outrageous discrimination and bullying with respect to race, color, language,
ethnicity, gender and even sexual orientation. The phenomenon of bullying and harassment is
not new, as the USA has encountered phases of immigration in the past, the American society
is home to a largely diverse and multicultural. Yet, the society still lacks an open minded
sense culturally safety, which is the most important contributing factor to the bullying and
harassment faced by the majority of immigrants and culturally diverse ethnic minorities.
Purpose
The youth of the society is the most affected by the bullying and harassment, and even
though there have been many laws and policies that have been introduced to stop the bullying
and harassment activities, the concern for bullying affecting the teens and adolescents of the
society is still prevalent. The immigrants and culturally diverse population have been
reported to view bullying and the fear of being bullied to be the main contributor to self-
harming behavior, aggression, and even dropping out. Unfortunately, our elementary school
has also faced bullying, mostly verbal and physical concerning body image, color, and
language. Hence, it is very important for us to design and implement strategies to delimit the
bullying in these children so that they can grow up to be culturally appropriate and respectful
citizens.

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Purpose of the program
The topic chosen for this assignment is to delimit the behavior of bullying and
discrimination from the children in the elementary school and encourage a culture of unity
and togetherness with the different cultural backgrounds. The most important contributing
factor to the selection of this topic. First and foremost, participation is bullying, body
shaming and discrimination is a behavioral trait that the children pick up from the very
childhood. Many research studies have illustrated the fact that bullying can be stopped at a
large scale if the children grow up in an environment where discrimination and bullying is
strictly abhorred and seen as a punishable offense (Oldenburg, Bosman & Veenstra, 2016).
As the children spend a long period of time in the schools, a culture of antidiscrimination
practiced inside the classroom can help the children envision bullying as a crime and develop
an inherent aversion towards it.
Bullying is an umbrella term which encompasses unwanted aggression; observed or
perceived power distance or imbalance; and repetition of such behaviors or high likelihood of
repetition. The bullying can be direct and indirect, and it can be carried out verbally,
physically or relationally. Statistical data suggests that one in three students in the USA have
been reported to be facing bullying and harassment, including cyberbullying which is equally
detrimental if not more (Stopbullying.gov, 2018). Although the most of the bullying is
observed in the middle school, the elementary schools are also encountering both physical
and verbal bullying (Gökkaya, 2017).
The purpose of this program is to use psycho-education to change or modify the
psychosocial climate of the children so that they recognize bullying as an offensive activity
which is to be avoided and protested against. Psycho- education can be defined as a
specialized education program which targets the thought process of the individuals and

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attempts to modify the behavior and response of the individuals via the assistance of
education combined with supportive intervention and counselling (Midgett et al., 2015). This
program will attempt to develop positive behavioral and emotional skills among the students,
so that they can integrate compassion, empathy and equality in their natural response to the
social minority groups. The vision of the program is to help the children of our school to
grow up as responsible citizens that view bullying as a social disease, which needs to be
eradicated completely for a better and healthy society.
Objectives
The objectives of the 10 week program includes:
 Assess the understanding of the children of verbal and physical bullying
 Assess awareness among the teachers regarding recognizing common forms of
bullying, its impact and how to stop it.
 Assess the Pupil-on-pupil intimidation risk factor
 Explore the severity and extent of bullying
 Assess the mental health status of the bullied children and the response among
the teachers
 Assess the self-blaming tendencies of the bully victims
 Enhancing and improving the academic performance of the bully victims and
perpetrators
 Improve the psychosocial climate of the school with the aid of psycho-
education.

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Literature review
Bullying in schools
Jan and Husain (2015) stated that bullying is an everlasting issues and is extremely
prevalent in the lives of kids who are in elementary schools. While common forms of
bullying include physical and verbal assaults, jokes, threats, mockery, facial expressions, and
insulting behaviors are also found to create a long impact on the mental health and wellbeing
of the victims. The researchers tried to explore the nature of bullying, its underlying causes,
and the impacts on student learning. It was suggested that it is often difficult to eradicate
bullying in elementary schools owing to its prevalence students. Teachers adorn the role of
professionals and are directly held responsible for the magnitudes of pupil-on-pupil
intimidation. The influence of prejudice associated bullying should never be undervalued.
Another study assessed the severity of bullying among school participants having varied roles
such as, bullies, victims and non-involved person (Chen, Cheng & Ho, 2015). Upon using the
School Bullying Severity Scale and Olweus questionnaire, it was found that verbal and
physical bullying were the most severe forms that were prevalent in schools, in comparison to
cyberbullying and relational bullying. The research also facilitated the identification of a two-
way association between the category of bullying and the role of the participants. While the
responses suggested that student bullies failed to perceive differences between varied kinds of
victimization, physical victimization was the most severe kind. This in turn can be associated
with the fact that self-blame tendency of the victims or the bullies have been found to be
greater than victims who are exposed to generalized scenarios. The traumatic experiences of
bullying at schools have been allied with a tendency of the victims developing an attitude that
makes them being critical of self and fail to appreciate the positive things about them (Chen
& Chen, 2018).

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Thornberg, Wänström and Pozzoli (2017) also aimed to examine the contribution of
moral disengagement and class climate on the different categories of victimization among
elementary school participants. The findings elaborated on the fact that victimization
demonstrates a reduced likelihood to happen in classes that are typically characterized by a
warm, positive, supportive, and fair relational pattern between teachers and children, and by
lesser levels of moral disengagement. Hence, the research helped in establishing the role of
educators in preventing bullying in elementary schools. Owing to the fact that targeted
children usually suffer from poor academic performance in schools, which in turn is
concomitant with anxiety, sleep problems, and depression (Strøm et al., 2013). Furthermore,
the perpetrators of school bullying have also been found to be more susceptible to substance
abuse and violent behavior at a later stage in their life. Hence, there is a need of
implementing a psychoeducation program for boosting socio-emotional learning among the
elementary school students, with the aim of helping them avert from or defend themselves
from any kind of bullying activities.
School based bullying programs
Evans, Fraser and Cotter (2014) conducted a systematic review to determine the
effects of school based programs in the prevention of the social phenomenon of bullying and
found that interventions that were implemented outside the United States, on homogeneous
samples proved better successful in bullying prevention, when compared to programs that
were implemented in the US. This could be accredited to the fact that the samples were more
heterogeneous in the US. Bradshaw (2013) affirmed the fact that the Preventing Bullying
through Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) can be implemented in the
form of a probable framework for integrating youth and children bullying and violence
anticipation models across educational institutions. It was further suggested that the PBIS is a
non-curricular model that can be made to fit within the school context and culture, owing to

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its flexibility. Hence, implementation of the PBIS across any school type, level, or setting
would encompass a three-tiered, health system wide framework namely, Tier 1(universal),
Tier 2 (selective), and Tier 3 (indicated) (Flannery et al., 2014). Thus, implementation of the
program brought about effective alterations in the disciplinary practices and enhanced
systems for promoting optimistic behavior among all students. According to Wang, Berry and
Swearer (2013) bullying behaviors are not allowed under situations that involve control and
social organization in a school. It has also been established that students demonstrate an
increased likelihood of participating in bullying, upon encountering unhealthy school climate.
Furthermore, according to Bosworth and Judkins (2014) students who perceived their
school environment as unfriendly, susceptible to conflict, unfair, and non-supportive, also
supported victimization and aggression in schools. This can be further associated with the
fact that most students fail to show adherence to their school rules and norms against
bullying. In addition, under situations when bullying behavior is typically approved by
teachers and peers, the students often tend to have faith in that the ability of a school to
supervise or control their behavior is weakened, and they are more expected to involve in
bullying behavior. This is in accordance with Low and Van Ryzin, (2014) who confirmed
that psychosocial climate in schools is strongly allied with momentary reductions in bullying-
related behaviors and attitudes among students (both victims and perpetrators). Hence,
establishment of a positive psychosocial climate in elementary schools that takes into
consideration the perspectives of both the students and the educators that can play an
important role in prevention of bullying, by optimizing the impacts of stand-along prevention
agendas (Espelage, Low & Jimerson, 2014).
There is mounting evidence for the fact that the student–teacher connectedness acts as
a major protective factor that creates a major influence on the harmful impacts of bullying on
the academic achievement of students. In addition, students who were found to report low

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rates of connectedness with their schools reported greater instances of verbal, relational and
physical types of peer victimization (Espelage, Polanin & Low, 2014). In other words,
teachers reportedly close with students display a greater tendency to report increased job
satisfaction, teaching efficiency and lessened student problems their classrooms. The
relationship between the school staff members and the administrators of the educational
institutions have also proved imperative in this regard, owing to their association with the
implementation of school-wide bullying prevention programs and initiatives. Thus, there is a
need to implement a psycho-educational program for preventing bullying among students in
the elementary school.

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References
Bosworth, K., & Judkins, M. (2014). Tapping into the power of school climate to prevent
bullying: One application of schoolwide positive behavior interventions and
supports. Theory Into Practice, 53(4), 300-307.
Bradshaw, C. P. (2013). Preventing bullying through Positive Behavioral Interventions and
Supports (PBIS): A multitiered approach to prevention and integration. Theory Into
Practice, 52(4), 288-295.
Chen, L. M., Cheng, W., & Ho, H. C. (2015). Perceived severity of school bullying in
elementary schools based on participants’ roles. Educational Psychology, 35(4), 484-
496.
Chen, W. R., & Chen, L. M. (2018). Self-blame tendency of bullied victims in elementary
and secondary schools. Educational Studies, 1-17.
Espelage, D. L., Low, S. K., & Jimerson, S. R. (2014). Understanding school climate,
aggression, peer victimization, and bully perpetration: Contemporary science,
practice, and policy. School psychology quarterly, 29(3), 233.
Espelage, D. L., Polanin, J. R., & Low, S. K. (2014). Teacher and staff perceptions of school
environment as predictors of student aggression, victimization, and willingness to
intervene in bullying situations. School psychology quarterly, 29(3), 287.
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.

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Flannery, K. B., Fenning, P., Kato, M. M., & McIntosh, K. (2014). Effects of school-wide
positive behavioral interventions and supports and fidelity of implementation on
problem behavior in high schools. School Psychology Quarterly, 29(2), 111.
Gökkaya, F. (2017). Peer bullying in schools: A cognitive behavioral intervention program.
In Child and Adolescent Mental Health. InTech.
Jan, A., & Husain, S. (2015). Bullying in Elementary Schools: Its Causes and Effects on
Students. Journal of Education and Practice, 6(19), 43-56.
Low, S., & Van Ryzin, M. (2014). The moderating effects of school climate on bullying
prevention efforts. School psychology quarterly, 29(3), 306.
Midgett, A., Doumas, D., Sears, D., Lundquist, A., & Hausheer, R. (2015). A Bystander
Bullying Psychoeducation Program With Middle School Students: A Preliminary
Report. Professional Counselor, 5(4), 486-500.
O'brennan, L. M., Waasdorp, T. E., & Bradshaw, C. P. (2014). Strengthening bullying
prevention through school staff connectedness. Journal of Educational
Psychology, 106(3), 870.
Oldenburg, B., Bosman, R., & Veenstra, R. (2016). Are elementary school teachers prepared
to tackle bullying? A pilot study. School psychology international, 37(1), 64-72.
Stopbullying.gov (2018). Facts About Bullying. [Online] Retrieved from
https://www.stopbullying.gov/media/facts/index.html. [Accessed on 19th Dec]
Strøm, I. F., Thoresen, S., Wentzel-Larsen, T., & Dyb, G. (2013). Violence, bullying and
academic achievement: A study of 15-year-old adolescents and their school
environment. Child abuse & neglect, 37(4), 243-251.

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Thornberg, R., Wänström, L., & Pozzoli, T. (2017). Peer victimisation and its relation to
class relational climate and class moral disengagement among school
children. Educational Psychology, 37(5), 524-536.
Wang, C., Berry, B., & Swearer, S. M. (2013). The critical role of school climate in effective
bullying prevention. Theory Into Practice, 52(4), 296-302.