Essay Instructions: By using the below essay to anwser the questions that follow
Bullying Prevention Programs
Bullying refers to any physical or verbal behavior that harasses or hurts the bully victim. The upcoming topics of the paper will be based on the devised thesis statement for the subject. The devised thesis statement for the paper is, ?Because the bullying has become life threatening for most of the people, bullying prevention programs should be implemented to control and ultimately eliminate bullying from our society.?
With reference to the thesis statement devised above, the paper will be focused upon discussing an implemented bullying prevention program. The scope of the discussion will take into consideration the how?s and why?s of the program invention, what?s and who?s, and finally, the impact that the program has had on the current situation of the problem.
In modern and developed countries, one major threat to the well being of youngsters and young adults is bullying. What started as just a few students or youngsters getting together picking on someone has now become a serious threat to the physical and mental well being of the society as a whole.
Bullying has become a major point of consideration for all the countries at a national level. It may sound something trivial but it has very strong impacts on those who are affected by it and those who actually do it. People who are affected by it are traumatized for a longer period of time while people who do it and are not stopped might turn out to be future criminals or outlaws.
Due to heavy prevalence of this problem, schools and colleges are now looking towards a proper and systematic solution to address it. The paper revolves around the solution and aims to analyze a Bullying Prevention Program (BPP) in detail so that sufficient understanding can be developed on bullying and how it can be prevented (Indiana University, 2012).
Determining what is bullying and is very easy but can be confusing. It is important to know that bullying is carried out by a bully due to the emerging desire to hurt a person or affect him / her negatively. Bullying can take place at all levels, in schools, colleges, universities or even workplaces however in different places it exists in different forms. There are at least twelve different types of bullying some of which are client bullying, serial bullying, institutional bullying, organizational bullying, corporate bullying, pressure bullying, gang bullying, secondary bullying, pair bullying, vicarious bullying, cyber bullying, residual bullying, regulation bullying, and peer bullying.
The chosen program for the purpose of academic discussion is Olweus Bullying Protection Program. The program is universal and has been developed and designed by Dr. Dan Olweus. The program is known as one of the most comprehensive and effective programs for bullying protection. Dr. Olweus recognized the need for the program when there was a drastic increase in school violence emerging from bullying (Bauer, Lozano, & Rivara, 2007).
In some ways or the other, bullying acted as a child of criminal activities acting on an international scale. The future appeared darker due to bullying thus it was important to devise a solution for the problem. The program is basically designed for schools and aims to treat both the people who are bullied and the people who are bullies.
The problem we are dealing with is bullying. While most people may disregard it by taking it non-serious, the statistics indicate that more than 50% of the students want to willingly give up on school due to the bullying problems. The statistics also indicate a noticeable increase in the rate of child and youth suicide, school violence, bathroom harassment, and emotional / mental disturbance all due to bullying. This is not only affecting the current education system and quality but also affecting the overall society negatively (Bauer, Lozano, & Rivara, 2007).
Thus no matter how much we try to portray the scope as limited, we cannot because the scope is actually huge, and is increasing more day by day.
Bullying has been a part of the western society since the early beginning but it was somewhere around in the 1970?s that Dr. Olweus took the initiative of carrying out the first systematic research to study on these problem. Gradually the bullying increased and resulted in successful suicide attempts by young boys. It was the first time that the matter was taken seriously into consideration nationally. However the efforts of taking the matter seriously were only in Scandinavia and not in other areas of the world.
Due to the increasing rate of bullying and bully victims, Dr. Olweus finally developed the Olweus Bully Prevention Program. The program was first evaluated on a large scale project and then became the pioneer, universal, and most successful bully prevention programs (Olweus, Limber, & Mihalic, Blueprints for Violence Prevention: Book Nine -- Bullying Prevention Program, 1999).
The purpose of the program is to reduce bullying by preventing and controlling it. Expanding on the purpose, it would not be wrong to say that by implementing this program the schools want a better output in terms of students. Bullies are most likely to turn into violent crime committers; hence it is a danger for the overall society to nurture bullies.
Therefore, it is important to treat the bullies and not handle them violently immediately. Treating them will diminish the violent nature that prevails within them however handling them violently will only stop them temporarily. To sum it up, the purpose is to reduce bullying by preventing and controlling it along with treatment of the bullies and the bullied in order to maintain the societal balance.
The program elements constitute of elements that enable the program?s implementation. In order to be implemented successfully the program should have the right kind of target segment and the right kind of content along with the program team. The elements include who the program targets, the team for implementation, and the program contents. All the elements are discussed in detail below (Olweus, Limber, & Mihalic, Blueprints for Violence Prevention: Book Nine -- Bullying Prevention Program, 1999).
Target
The program targets students. Basically the elementary, junior and high school students are largely the victims of bullying therefore the program has been specifically designed for them. Since the bullying can be carried out by any one, also a teacher, the program aims to train the children to handle bullying and address it in the right way.
Content
The content of the program consists of the individual components, the class room components and the school wide components. The details of each component are discussed below in detail.
Individual Components ? These components include different kinds of interventions designed for the bully ? students and the bully victims. The interventions are supposed to be carried out by the teachers of the students however they may be assisted by a mental health expert or a counselor.
Class room Components ? These components include designing a set of class rules against bullying and having student meetings to monitor bullying and bullying protection at regular intervals. This would create a sense of accountability in the minds of the students. If they are being bullied the meetings would help and encourage them to reveal. If they are bullies, they would know that sooner or later they will be exposed and will be punished in some way for the other. Thus for the bullies the meetings will act as deterrents.
School wide Components- This is the most comprehensive component in nature and includes planned interventions, anonymous surveys to assess the nature and extent of bullying, school conferences every once in a while and a bully prevention committee that will constantly monitor and focus on the issues related to bullying. The committee has also been designed for students who don?t have a control over their violent abilities and carry out bullying due to their lack of control. The committee will then work upon treating such bullies and also save them from serious consequences.
The Team
The team constitutes of the school staff along with the teachers, administrators, counselors and other health experts within the school. The team constitutes of both internal and external team. The above mentioned team is internal that is made from within the school while the external team is temporary team or a visitor team that can be called for a special intervention for students to treat a specific bully issue.
The impact of the program can be judged by the level to which bullying has been reduced in schools where the Olweus Bully Prevention Program was implemented. The results basically show a significant decrease in bullying and victimization, a significant decrease in the anti social behavior of the students such as fighting, isolation etc., and over all positive improvement. The regions where the program was implemented show significant improvement and a significant decrease in the amount of bullying. However it is important to note that the problem still exists and hasn?t been eliminated completely. It is important for every school to have such a program as a part of its core syllabus in order to prevent students from mental and physical suffering (Whitted & Dupper, 2005).
The cost of the program is almost $300 that includes the cost of the content and the cost of required for the materials required by the teacher. Additional costs may be required by the on-site project implementing coordinator. Therefore the program should be implemented in schools world wide as it is a reasonable and affordable program that can improve the school?s environment by prevention of bullying (Bauer, Lozano, & Rivara, 2007)..
Bibliography
Bauer, N. S., Lozano, P., & Rivara, F. P. (2007). The Effectiveness of the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program in Public Middle Schools: A Controlled Trial. Journal of Adolescent Health, 266-274.
Indiana University. (2012). Bullying Prevention. Indianan: US Department of Education.
Jones, L., Doces, M., Swearer, S., & Collier, A. (2012). Implementing Bullying Prevention Program - A How to guide. MacArthur Foundation .
Olweus, D. (2005). A useful evaluation design, and effects of the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program. Psychology, Crime and Law, 389-402.
Olweus, D., Limber, S., & Mihalic, S. (1999). Blueprints for Violence Prevention: Book Nine -- Bullying Prevention Program. Penssylvania: Pennsylvania Cmssn on Crime and Delinquency.
University of Colorado . (2012, September 8). Model Programs: Olweus BPP: Blueprints for Violence Prevention. Retrieved from Center of Study and Prevention of Violence - Institute of Behavioral Science: http://www.colorado.edu/cspv/blueprints/modelprograms/BPP.html
Whitted, K. S., & Dupper, D. R. (2005). Best Practices for Preventing or Reducing Bullying in Schools. Oxford Journals, 167-175.
Wright, J. (2004). Preventing Classroom Bullying. Intervention Central.
Use the above essay to answer the following questions.
1.At the top of the page,write your thesis statement.
2.Create a detailed outline of your paper,which lays out a summary of the information you will present in your final paper.The outline must include a minimum of ten main section heads and a minimum of two subtopics under each section head.The outline also must follow the format taught in class(e.g., use of Roman numerals,capital letters).
3.for each subsection head in your outline,write the last name(s) of the author(s) and year of publication of the article(s) that you are relying on to create those subsections.
4.submit a minimum of 8 abstracts of the sources you will be using to write your paper.(THE SOURCES CAN BE FOUND IN THE ABOVE ESSAYS)
Use the below outline as a guide to your outline
I. Introduction:
A. Statistics on prevalence of drunk driving in United States (source #, p. #)
B. Cost associated with drunk driving (source #, p. #)
C. Two approaches to reducing drunk driving (source #, p. #)
1. Punishment (source #, p. #)
2. Rehabilitation (source #, p. #)
D. Thesis statement
II. Scope of problem
A. Summary of most recent estimates of number of drunk driving incidents in U.S. (source #, p. #)
B. Summary of most recent estimates of drunk driving fatalities in U.S. (source #, p. #)
III. Define drunk drivers
A. Legal limits (source #, p. #)
1. DUI- Minimum blood alcohol content .08 (source #, p. #)
2. DWI- Minimum blood alcohol content .07 (source #, p. #)
B. Prevalence- offender demographics
1. Gender (source #, p. #)
a. Male (source #, p. #)
b. Female (source #, p. #)
2. Ethnic groups (source #, p. #)
a. Caucasian (source #, p. #)
b. African American (source #, p. #)
c. Hispanic (source #, p. #)
3. Age (source #, p. #)
a. Legal age (21 and over) (source #, p. #)
b. Under age (under 21) (source #, p. #)
IV. History of DUI legislation
A. First legislation passed in 1910 (source #, p. #)
B. California first state with legislation against drunk driving (source #, p. #)
C. Many states had passed laws by the 1990s (source #, p. #)
D. Currently all states have laws against drunk driving (source #, p. #)
V. Punishment
A. Confinement (source #, p. #)
1. Prison (source #, p. #)
2. Home detention (source #, p. #)
B. Fines (source #, p. #)
C. Removal of privileges (source #, p. #)
1. Take away driver?s license (source #, p. #)
2. Take away license plates (source #, p. #)
3. Ignition interlock devices (source #, p. #)
VI. Treatment programs
A. In-patient (source #, p. #)
1. Alcohol-related programs (source #, p. #)
2. Mental health therapy (source #, p. #)
B. Outpatient (source #, p. #)
1. Alcohol-related programs (source #, p. #)
a. Alcoholics Anonymous (source #, p. #)
b. Alcohol education classes (source #, p. #)
2. Mental health therapy (source #, p. #)
VII. Study #1- Smith & Jones, 2008
A. Do ignition interlock devices reduce recidivism for first-time DUI offenders? (Research question)
B. 350 convicted DUI offenders in NM from 2000 to 2004 (Sample population)
C. Data obtained from interviews, questionnaires (Data obtained)
D. 55% of sample population did not recidivate after 1 year (Findings)
E. Small sample size may affect findings
VIII. Study #2- Wells, 2007
A. Are repeat DUI offenders who receive 1-3years in prison less likely to recidivate?
B. 1500 offenders, nationwide, examined in 2005
C. Data obtained from interviews, questionnaires
D. 51% of those offenders did not recidivate
E. Problems with data collection may have skewed results
IX. Study #3- Wilson, 2004
A. Does the combined punishment of imposing a fine and revoking a DUI offender?s driver?s license reduce the likelihood that the offender well drink and drive in the future
B. 4000 offenders from three Midwest states
C. Data obtained from self-report surveys, interviews
D. Offenders who received combination of punishments less likely to drink and drive; however, if they received only, not less likely to drink and drive
E. Self-report survey may have led to underreporting, inaccurate answers
X. Conclusion
A. Summary statement of problem and impact on society (source #, p. #)
B. Restate the thesis
C. Future implications (source #, p. #)
1. Create more ways to educate people about drunk driving and the repercussions for committing it (source #, p. #)
2. Conduct more studies examining combination of punishment and treatment to reduce recidivism (source #, p. #)
