Prevention activities focus on identifying and responding to violence, its causes for choosing violence in interpersonal relationships, learning behaviours that prevent violence, and the factors risk factors for violence.
PREVENTING PEER VIOLENCE IN EDUCATIONAL ESTABLISHMENTS
European countries have developed a number of prevention models. These can be classified into three major groups.
- Models in which different ways (workshops, games, etc.) attempt to introduce children to:
– the characteristics and different forms of violence
– how to recognise violence and what its consequences can be
– how to help a peer if he/she is in the grip of violence
– how to react to peer violence and how to protect oneself
– who to tell
– what is the role of bystanders and the role of teachers and educators
– who can help the child if he/she has experienced a particular act of violence or is being ill-treated
The aim of these approaches is therefore to understand the dynamics of violence, the role of the different actors and to learn how to actively confront violent behaviour. Typically, these approaches are implemented by the school counselling service or by external experts from NGOs or educational institutions.
- Models that focus on the reasons for the choice of violence in interpersonal relationships and communication, and behavioural learning, that directly prevent acts of violence. In these approaches we try to:
– build assertiveness, good self-esteem and self-respect in children
– teach children to resolve conflict and disputes in a constructive way that excludes the use of violence to achieve one’s own goals, interests and gratification needs; in particular, peer mediation, negotiation, seeking compromises
– developing “problem solving” approaches, where children learn to work independently
problem-solving in a non-violent way
– strengthening children’s emotional literacy, so that they can recognise and understand their own emotions and manage them in different peer contexts interactions, while at the same time being able to recognise the emotions of others and, accordingly choose non-violent behaviours
These models can be developed in educational institutions by school counsellors in departments or individually with individual children. In doing so, they can cooperate with external professional and advisory institutions or NGOs organisations.
- Models that aim to prevent peer violence in its social and structural origins
These models start from the premise that children – their lives and behaviour – are largely determined by the categories of gender, religion, ethnicity, culture and language. These categories are key to understanding violence among children and adolescents. When children belong to vulnerable social groups, they can be marked by experiences of inequality, discrimination, social exclusion, vulnerability and poverty. This structural violence they experience is a factor in risk factor for violence in interpersonal relationships in educational institutions. Therefore, in such social contexts, preventive approaches must address structural risk factors, rather than looking for the causes of violent children’s behaviour in the psychosocial aspects of their personality. A multiprofessional approach is needed approach, including sociological, (socio-)pedagogical, psychological, criminological, social welfare analysis of the situation in the educational institution and its environment. In such preventive measures, the educational establishment models, together with the local community and its institutions, seeks and creates conditions for cooperation with the family and power-holders in (vulnerable) society group to which the child involved in violence belongs. Educational institution plans prevention depending on the context of peer violence, together with the local community, social work centre, NGOs, police and other local educational and cultural institutions.
RESOURCES AND LITERATURE:
- PROTOKOLI ZA RAVNANJE. MEDVRSTNIŠKO NASILJE: https://www.gov.si/assets/ministrstva/MVI/SRI/NASILJE/Protokol_medvrstnisko_nasilje.pdf
- KAKO DO SPODBUDNEGA IN VARNEGA UČNEGA OKOLJA?
- https://www.gov.si/assets/ministrstva/MVI/SRI/NASILJE/Kako-do-spodbudnega-in-varnega-ucnega-okolja.pdf
NAVODILA S PRIROČNIKOM ZA OBRAVNAVO MEDVRSTNIŠKEGA NASILJA V VZGOJNOIZOBRAŽEVALNIH ZAVODIH: https://www.zrss.si/digitalnaknjiznica/navodila-medvrstnisko-nasilje-viz-2016/files/assets/common/downloads/publication.pdf