Psychoeducational Program for Bullying and Harassment

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

1PSYCHOEDUCATIONAL PROGRAM
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.

2PSYCHOEDUCATIONAL PROGRAM
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

3PSYCHOEDUCATIONAL PROGRAM
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.