A group randomized controlled trial tested the efficacy of the Friendly Schools program to reduce student bullying behaviour. This socio-ecological intervention targeted the whole school, classroom, family, and individual students to reduce bullying behaviour. Self-report data were collected in 29 schools over three years from a cohort of 1,968 8-9 year olds. Surveys measured frequency of being bullied, bullying others, telling if bullied and observing bullying. Results indicate intervention students were significantly less likely to observe bullying at 12, 24 and 36 months and be bullied after 12 and 36 months, and significantly more likely to tell if bullied after 12 months than comparison students. No differences were found for self-reported perpetration of bullying. The findings suggest whole-of-school programs that engage students in their different social contexts appear to reduce their experiences of being bullied and increase their likelihood of telling someone if they are bullied.2

In 2004, a set of validated guidelines for school bullying prevention and management was released by the Child Health Promotion Research Centre in Australia to guide schools' action to prevent and manage bullying behaviours. At this time little was known about cyber and other forms of covert bullying behaviours. These guidelines were updated in 2010 to include current research that provides a greater understanding of all forms of bullying behaviour. This article describes a summary of the current empirical evidence used to update these guidelines particularly related to relatively new and emergent forms of bullying, such as cyberbullying. Meta-analyses and reviews that assessed the effectiveness of school-based bullying interventions were examined to inform the relevance of the previously validated guidelines and to identify potential intervention strategies to reduce cyberbullying. This review confirmed the importance of a systematic whole-school approach to effectively prevent and manage all forms of bullying behaviours in schools (including cyberbullying) and the need to strengthen capacity supports to enable schools to put evidence into informed practice.

Objective: Increasingly, researchers are required to obtain active parental consent prior to surveying children and adolescents in schools. This study assessed the potential bias present in a sample of actively consented students, and in the estimates of associations between variables obtained from this sample.Methods: 3,496 students from 36 non-government metropolitan schools completed an online baseline survey in 2010 as part of the Cyber Friendly Schools Project in Perth, WA. Students with active (35%) and passive (65%) parental consent were compared on a range of variables including demographic, bullying and social-emotional outcomes. The moderating effects of consent status on associations between the bullying and other outcomes were tested. Results:The students with active parental consent were underrepresented among those students involved in problem behaviours such as bullying others, they were also more likely to have lower prosocial scores and academic scores and live with one parent who was older than other parents.. Consent status was found to be a significant moderator of the associations between bullying victimisation and certain social-emotional variables. Conclusions and Implications:Active only parental consent leads to biased samples and estimates of associations between outcomes of interest. Strategies to boost response rates to levels sufficient to warrant the conduct of the research are labour-intensive and costly, and the obtained samples are still likely to be biased. For low risk research, such as the completion of health surveys, rigorous active-?passive consent procedures which result in higher participation rates, lower costs and reduced burden on teachers and schools, are preferred.

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Covert bullying behaviours are at least as distressing for young people as overt forms of bullying, but often remain unnoticed or unacknowledged by adults. This invisibility is increased in schools by inattention to covert bullying in policy and practice, and limited staff understanding and skill to address covert behaviours. These factors can lead to a school culture that appears to tolerate and thus inadvertently encourages covert bullying. This study explores these dynamics in Australian primary and secondary schools, including the attitudes of over 400 staff towards covert bullying, their understanding of covert bullying behaviours, and their perceived capacity to address these behaviours both individually and at a whole-school level. While most respondents felt a responsibility to intervene in bullying situations, nearly 70% strongly agreed with statements that staff need more training to address covert bullying. Only 10% of respondents described their current whole-school strategies as very effective in reducing covert bullying, and fewer than 40% reported their school had a bullying policy that explicitly referred to covert bullying. These results suggest an urgent need for sustainable professional development to enhance school staff understanding, skills and self-efficacy to address covert bullying through school policy and practice, and the need to identify and consolidate effective strategies to better address these behaviours.