Healthy People 2020 calls for a target of 10 percent reduction in the incidence of bullying from 19.9 percent to 17.9 percent by 2020 (Kub & Fieldman, 2015). This article outlines how nurses and school psychologists can use complementary roles to prevent bullying. They also mention that chil- dren with high levels of parental support reported lower levels of internalizing distress, which may buffer the effects of victimization.
Collaboration among officials and parents can provide support that may safeguard victims from negative outcomes. Parent support for female victims and teacher, classmate, and school support for male victims were found to buffer victims from internalizing distress from bullying, and conversely those who perceived less support internalized more distress from bullying (Davidson & Demaray, 2007). While many of these studies have demonstrated some positive effects of bullying prevention programs, there is little agreement on which factors lead to the resilience of the bullied population, once again suggesting this requires a multifaceted approach to problem solving and prevention.
▸ Gaps
Policies alone or in combination with a bullying prevention curriculum do not automatically trans- late into behavioral changes. A recent meta-analysis revealed over the last decade school-wide bully prevention program evaluations have demonstrated negligible to nonsignificant results of such programs (Ryzin & Low, 2014). The school has a responsibility to provide a safe environment for youth just as a workplace is liable for promoting a nonthreatening workplace and providing a proper response to threatening behaviors. Wherever you find bullies, their behavior and impact must be controlled or managed. Programs must be effective and school administrators, teachers, nurses, and counselors must provide a safe school climate. Herein lies the gap in bully prevention.
Under the Safe School Climate Act of 2006, school districts were required to establish policies to address these behaviors by January 2007. Notably this act was finally passed after school deaths
Gaps 67
hit the all-time high of 256 in 2000. It provides an excellent description of school liability and ele- ments of negligence involving bullying. School personnel have a legal duty to protect students from foreseeable harm. It is foreseeable that acts of bullying may result in physical and psychological harm to students that could linger for a lifetime (Safe School Climate Act, 2006).
The gap includes some very interesting facts: 35 percent of children bullied report their teachers do not know about it, 29 percent of children say the teachers made it worse, and another 25 percent of teachers see bullying as a rite of passage with only 4 percent intervening (Juvonen et al., 2016). Effective bullying prevention programs help teachers learn to intervene effectively, and victims are more likely to feel supported by the school (Juvonen et al., 2016). Just as important as educator support and intervention is being defended or comforted by a friend, which increases self-esteem and makes the victim feel less rejected and supported. Parental support is key because the parent may be the only person the victim confides in. Parents are in an important position to respond to bullying incidents, whether their child is the victim or the bully. Continuing with this theme of in- volving parents in school-based programs to prevent and reduce bullying, what effect does it have?
According to this article, the logic of involving parents is so that they will tell the school if their child is being bullied and advocate for the child.
▸ Summary
We find broad agreement on the definition, types of bullying, and even the most common charac- teristics of bullies and victims. The literature clearly portrays policy makers busy making changes after all the mass shootings. They have tried to effect policies to provide a safe school climate. Dis- turbing facts come to light with the literature review: educators who do not see bullying as a prob- lem, educators who do not intervene, educators who do so ineffectively so the situation is made worse, educators who do not know who is being bullied, and parents who either do not know their child is a victim or do not advocate for their child, but it seems we may still be missing some important pieces of information. Bullying is not a harmless rite of passage and has real conse- quences such as psychiatric illnesses, suicide, and homicide. Bullying can cause lifelong emotional scarring, depression, and anxiety. Approximately 40 percent of school shooters studied were bullied and they needed help, but no one recognized this until it was too late for them and their victims.
There are many opportunities to develop effective antibullying programs; educate our teach- ers, parents, and students; recognize high-risk students and intervene early; and reevaluate the effectiveness of our programs. There is enough data to suggest a multifaceted approach is needed in bullying prevention programs. While there is abundant research suggesting that parental, edu- cator, and peer support boosts resilience in the vulnerable bullied population, little data was found from the actual educators’ point of view, perhaps one of the most critical aspects needed in preven- tion programs. Nurse practitioners may see a child 15 minutes during an office visit or maybe not at all because some children only go to a clinic or urgent care when they are physically sick, but ed- ucators and school nurses and counselors are with these children every day. The opportunity for them to intervene may be as crucial as the parent’s role. What might we learn from the experts on the front line?
▸ Acknowledgment
The authors acknowledge the help of Haley Fredericks for the preliminary literature review on bullying.
68 Chapter 6 Bullying
References
Axford, N., Farrington, D., Clarkson, S., Bjornstad, G., Wrigley, Z., & Hutchings, J. (2015). Involving parents in school-based programmes to prevent and reduce bullying: What effect does it have? Journal of Children’s Services, 10(3), 242–251.
Copeland, W. E., Wolke, D., Angold, A., & Costello, J. (2013). Adult psychiatric outcomes of bullying and being bullied by peers in childhood and adolescence. JAMA Psychiatry, 70, 419–426.
Davidson, L. M., & Demaray, M. K. (2007). Social support as a moderator between victimization and internalizing- externalizing distress from bullying. School Psychology Review, 36, 383–405.
Fink, P. E., & Wolpert, M. (2018). Child-and school-level predictors of children’s bullying behavior: A multilevel analysis in 648 primary schools. Journal of Educational Psychology, 110, 17–26.
History of school shootings in the United States. (2018). Retrieved from http://www.k12academics.com/school-shootings /history-school-shootings-united-states
Juvonen, J., Schacter, H., Sainio, M., & Salmivalli, C. (2016). Can a school-wide bullying prevention program improve the plight of victims? Evidence for risk × intervention effects. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 84, 334–344.
Kub, J., & Fieldman, M. A. (2015). Bullying prevention: A call for collaborative efforts between school nurses and school psychologists. Psychology in the Schools, 52(7), 658–671.
Langman, P. (2018). Statistics on bullying and school shootings. Retrieved from https://schoolshooters.info/sites/default /files/bullying_school_shootings_1.1.pdf
Magnuson, S., & Norem, K. (2009). Bullies grow up and go to work. Journal of Professional Counselling: Practice, Theory, and Research, 37, 34–51.
Perron, T. (2013). Peer victimization; Strategies to decrease bullying in schools. British Journal of School Nursing, 8(1), 25–29.
Ryzin, M. V., & Low, S. (2014). The moderating effects of school climate on bullying prevention efforts. Developmental Psychology, 50, 2093–2104.
Safe School Climate Act of South Carolina, H.B. 3573, South Carolina Code §59-63-120, §59-63-140 (2006). Retrieved from https://ed.sc.gov/scdoe/assets/File/educators/educator-preparation/educator-units/climateact.pdf
69 References
▸ Introduction
Nursing science attends to the nature and experience of being human (Meleis, 2012). The nursing profession’s disciplinary focus is to improve the quality of life and health of individuals, families, communities, and society (McCurry, Hunter Revell, & Roy, 2010). Contemporary nursing care is heavily influenced by knowledge development that is happening within a dynamic, evolving so- cial and environmental healthcare context (McCurry et al., 2010). Risjord (2010) argued that nurs- ing knowledge development, which he termed the “nursing standpoint,” starts from “nurses’ lives”
(p. 74), or that the problems and solutions in nursing are identified within nurses’ daily practice.
OBJECTIVES
At the end of this chapter, you will be able to:
1. Describe how middle-range theories in nursing apply to vulnerable populations.
2. Apply at least one theory to a specific population of interest to you.
3. Provide at least one research example that uses a middle-range theory.