Trauma-Informed Methods to Enhance School-Based Bullying Prevention Initiatives: An Emerging Model

Abstract

This article describes an emerging model of trauma-informed supports for school climate and bullying prevention developed through a social research design and development approach. Student survey data were used to inform program design. The study was conducted as part of baseline data collection for a federal Safe Schools/Healthy Students grant awarded to a cooperative group of 10 school districts in upstate New York. A local university partnered with the cooperative to design an innovative program model to enhance bullying prevention and provide social-emotional and mental health supports for students. In addition to descriptive data, findings from multinomial logistic regression analyses are provided to understand the relative influence of the independent variables on the students' report of bully-aggressor behavior and victim-bystander experiences.

School Bullying and Post-traumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms: The Role of Parental Bonding

“…Considering these results in totality, we believe that it is necessary to create a new integrative approach (92–94) of examining bullying through the lens of traumatic symptoms and the quality of parental bonding. This helps provide an assessment of deeper psychological interactions that lead to the emergence of negative emotional consequences among victims and bullies, therefore, to be able to design and establish a more comprehensible model of prevention and intervention within family and school contexts that will take into consideration the quality of family dynamics and the quality of parental bonding.…”

Bringing Sanctuary to School: Assessing School Climate as a Foundation for Culturally Responsive Trauma-Informed Approaches for Urban Schools

“…Children who are dealing with toxic stress will carry this emotional burden to school, and when a school has many children managing toxic stress, school climate can be affected. Therefore, it is important to consider ways to address trauma and stress as part of universal student supports (Blitz & Lee, 2015; Ko et al, 2008). Trauma-informed schools recognize the impact of trauma and toxic stress in the lives of the students, respond by helping children build resiliency, and develop discipline practices that teach prosocial behavior rather than risk re-traumatization through harsh punishment (Bath, 2008).…”

“…Sanctuary’s focus on four domains, safety, emotions, losses, and future (Esaki et al, 2013), guides this understanding. Adapting these domains for schools to safety, emotions, learning, and family (Blitz & Lee, 2015) informs school personnel and guides teaching, learning, and discipline practices.…”

Clinical Practice with Children and Adolescents Involved in Bullying and Cyberbullying: Gleaning Guidelines from the Literature

“…Bullying involvement can be traumatic and may suggest traumatic exposure in other contexts (Carney, 2008;Crosby, Oehler, & Capaccioli, 2010;Idsoe, Dyregrov, Idsoe, 2012;Litman et al, 2015;Newman, Holden, & Delville, 2005). Treatment in the context of bullying and cyberbullying should therefore be sensitive to common trauma dynamics (Blitz & Lee, 2015;Mishna & Sawyer, 2011;Plumb, Bush, & Kersevich, 2016;Weaver, 2000). Several of the articles reviewed focused on using nonverbal exercises and media to express potentially traumatic experiences related to bullying involvement, including music (Shafer & Silverman, 2013), art (Barrett, 2012;Nicoli, 2016;Sosin & Rockinson-Szapkiw, 2016;Ziomek-Daigle & Land, 2016), and play (Barrett, 2012;Ziomek-Daigle & Land, 2016).…”