Globally, one in three students report being involved in bullying others (Modecki et al., Reference Modecki, Minchin, Harbaugh, Guerra and Runions2014), where bullying is defined as repeated, intentional acts of aggression enacted with the intention to harm the target, who is less powerful than the perpetrator and unable to stop it from happening (Thomas et al., Reference Thomas, Connor, Lawrence, Hafekost, Zubrick and Scott2017). Two key determinants of young people’s mental health and wellbeing are their school relationships and experiences of bullying (as a perpetrator and/or a target of bullying; Hemphill et al., Reference Hemphill, Kotevski, Herrenkohl, Bond, Kim, Toumbourou and Catalano2011; Slee et al., Reference Slee, Smith, Morita, Catalano, Junger-Tas and Olweus1999). Although prevalence estimates of bullying vary, primarily due to their measurement, the most recent (2017) Australian nationally representative estimates of bullying behaviour indicate that 13.3% of young people were victimised every few months or more often in the past year, 1.6% reported bullying perpetration only, and 1.9% reported being both victimised and perpetrators of bullying (Thomas et al., Reference Thomas, Connor, Lawrence, Hafekost, Zubrick and Scott2017). Traditional (or noncyber) bullying as reported by students is much more prevalent than cyberbullying, yet of those students who report being victimised or perpetrators online, a high proportion were also likely to report being victimised or perpetrators offline (Thomas et al., Reference Thomas, Connor, Lawrence, Hafekost, Zubrick and Scott2017), with meta-analytic estimates of correlations of .47 for perpetration and .40 for victimisation (Modecki et al., Reference Modecki, Minchin, Harbaugh, Guerra and Runions2014). Primary school-aged students reported higher rates of bullying behaviour than secondary students (Thomas et al., Reference Thomas, Connor, Lawrence, Hafekost, Zubrick and Scott2017), and the type of bullying experienced typically becomes more covert as students get older (Yeager et al., Reference Yeager, Fong, Lee and Espelage2015).
Although being victimised contributes uniquely and directly to mental health problems among young people, with severe and long-lasting consequences (Arseneault et al., Reference Arseneault, Bowes and Shakoor2010), students who bully others are also at risk, and students who are both victimised and perpetrators of bullying are most at risk (Sourander et al., Reference Sourander, Brunstein Klomek, Ikonen, Lindroos, Luntamo, Koskelainen, Ristkari and Helenius2010). Several longitudinal studies have found a causal relationship between bullying victimisation and mental health and emotional problems (Gazelle & Ladd, Reference Gazelle and Ladd2003; Goodman, Reference Goodman2001; Hanish & Guerra, Reference Hanish and Guerra2002), with strong meta-analytic evidence linking this victimisation to four of the top five sources of health burden for adolescent Australians, including depressive disorders, anxiety disorders, alcohol/drug abuse, and suicide or self-harm (Gini et al., Reference Gini, Card and Pozzoli2018; Holt-Lunstad et al., Reference Holt-Lunstad, Smith, Baker, Harris and Stephenson2015; Kowalski et al., Reference Kowalski, Giumetti, Schroeder and Lattanner2014). Bullying victimisation is also a robust risk factor for psychosis (including hallucinations and schizophrenic features; Cunningham et al., Reference Cunningham, Hoy and Shannon2016; van Dam et al., Reference van Dam, van der Ven, Velthorst, Selten, Morgan and de Haan2012), and less severe but more pervasive problems such as headache (Gini et al., Reference Gini, Pozzoli and Hymel2014) and sleep problems such as insomnia (van Geel et al., Reference van Geel, Goemans and Vedder2016). Bullying perpetration is also associated with increased risk for a range of poor outcomes, including criminal offending (Ttofi et al., 2011), violent aggression (Ttofi et al., Reference Ttofi, Farrington and Lösel2012), and drug abuse later in life (Ttofi et al., Reference Ttofi, Farrington, Lösel, Crago and Theodorakis2016). Similar to bullying victimisation, bullying perpetration is associated with suicidal ideation and behaviours (Holt-Lunstad et al., Reference Holt-Lunstad, Smith, Baker, Harris and Stephenson2015).
Multicomponent whole-of-school interventions targeting all levels and members of the school community are considered to be the most effective, nonstigmatising means to prevent and reduce the social and emotional harms from bullying behaviour (Farrington et al., Reference Farrington, Gaffney, Lösel and Ttofi2017; Ttofi & Farrington, Reference Ttofi and Farrington2011; Vreeman & Carroll, Reference Vreeman and Carroll2007; Zych, Farrington et al., Reference Zych, Farrington and Ttofi2019a). A meta-analysis of 44 interventions concluded that whole-school programs can be effective, reducing perpetration by 20–23%, and victimisation by 17–20% (Ttofi & Farrington, Reference Ttofi and Farrington2011; Zych, Farrington et al., Reference Zych, Farrington and Ttofi2019a). Further, a systematic review of meta-analyses investigated protective factors related to cyberbullying and offline bullying. It identified school climate, peer status, the absence of negative peer influence, social competence, and social problem solving as the most important modifiable risk factors that appear to influence student bullying behaviour (Zych, Farrington et al., Reference Zych, Farrington and Ttofi2019a). These protective factors are comprehensively addressed in one of Australia’s most empirically evaluated bullying prevention programs — Friendly Schools.
Friendly Schools Engages the Whole School Community
Friendly Schools is a strengths-based, whole-school approach to establish the policies, practices and resources necessary for effective social-emotional learning that promotes healthy social relationships and reduces bullying in primary and secondary schools. Numerous theoretical approaches, including socioecological (Cross et al., Reference Cross, Barnes, Papageorgiou, Hadwen, Hearn and Lester2015) and family systems (Cross & Barnes, Reference Cross and Barnes2014) theories, guided the development of the Friendly Schools’ research and provided a framework to understand that bullying emerges from complex interactions between young people and the contexts in which they live (Bronfenbrenner & Ceci, Reference Bronfenbrenner and Ceci1994; Espelage, Reference Espelage2014).
Friendly Schools engages all members of the school community (including students who are empowered to meaningfully contribute to policy and practices and lead change in their school) to collaboratively deliver:
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whole-school activities to build a positive social culture, enhance school connectedness and relationships, improve school policies and practices, provide a safe physical and social environment, and build school capacity to implement bullying prevention strategies. School staff are provided with assessment tools, support materials and training to implement whole-school activities most relevant to their school.
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teaching and learning activities to improve students’ social and emotional capabilities, develop common understandings of bullying, and learn how to respond to bullying. Teachers are provided with training and support to implement the learning activities.
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family and community engagement and partnerships to help schools work with families to improve their awareness and self-efficacy to enhance their social and emotional skills and reduce their children’s involvement in bullying. These activities include parent information resources, web portal news items, and interactive home learning resources.
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individual activities to provide early intervention and targeted support for victimised students and those who bully others, to support positive behaviour change and facilitate links with local health professionals.
Friendly Schools promotes students’ social and emotional learning by developing habits of mind to meet their social goals and make positive behavioural choices. It enables students to recognise and control their emotions, build positive relationships, work together to solve social problems and resolve conflict, show consideration for others, make thoughtful and morally engaged choices, and seek help when experiencing difficulties. It also helps school communities to build their own capacity for change and assist schools to use their school’s data (as part of their quality improvement processes) to assess the social and emotional strengths and needs of their students, identify context relevant areas for improvement and over time successfully implement needed evidence-based strategies.
Friendly Schools’ Research
Friendly Schools’ research has contributed significantly to the robust scientific discourse between researchers, policy makers, practitioners and educators of strategies to enhance social and emotional development and reduce bullying between school-age students. The research has moved through the translational research phases from intervention development to efficacy and effectiveness trials in Australia since 1999, via 18 major research projects (including seven randomised control trials and nine quasi-experimental studies; e.g., Barnes et al., Reference Barnes, Pearce, Erceg, Runions, Cardoso, Lester, Coffin, Cross and Smith2019; Cross et al., Reference Cross, Monks, Hall, Shaw, Pintabona, Erceg, Hamilton, Roberts, Waters and Lester2011; Cross et al., Reference Cross, Pintabona, Hall, Hamilton, Erceg and Roberts2003; Cross, Runions et al., Reference Cross, Runions, Resnicow, Britt and Gray2018; Cross et al., Reference Cross, Shaw, Hadwen, Cardoso, Slee, Roberts, Thomas and Barnes2016; Cross et al., Reference Cross, Waters, Pearce, Shaw, Hall, Erceg, Burns, Roberts and Hamilton2012).
Over 70 peer review publications have been published from Friendly Schools’ research detailing findings, including the effectiveness of Friendly Schools in reducing student bullying behaviours. It has been shown through randomised controlled trials to result in:
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decreased observations of bullying, increased likelihood of students speaking to an adult in their lives about being bullied, and decreased bullying perpetration and victimisation among primary school students who received the Friendly Schools intervention, compared to control groups (Cross et al., Reference Cross, Monks, Hall, Shaw, Pintabona, Erceg, Hamilton, Roberts, Waters and Lester2011; Cross et al., Reference Cross, Pintabona, Hall, Hamilton, Erceg and Roberts2003; Cross et al., Reference Cross, Waters, Pearce, Shaw, Hall, Erceg, Burns, Roberts and Hamilton2012);
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among students who transitioned to secondary school, reduced experiences of bullying victimisation and perpetration, reduced levels of depression, anxiety, stress and loneliness, and enhanced feelings of safety, and staff and peer support (Cross et al., Reference Cross, Runions, Shaw, Wong, Campbell, Pearce, Burns, Lester, Barnes and Resnicow2019; Cross, Shaw et al., Reference Cross, Shaw, Epstein, Pearce, Barnes, Burns, Waters, Lester and Runions2018);
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lower levels of motives for aggression that may drive bullying, including rage, revenge, reward, and recreational motives (Runions et al., Reference Runions, Graf, Pearce and Cross2021);
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increased self-efficacy among parents to talk to their children about bullying, and increased frequency in doing so (Cross, Lester et al., Reference Cross, Lester, Pearce, Barnes and Beatty2018);
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small but significant declines in cyber-victimisation and perpetration among secondary school students (Cross et al., Reference Cross, Shaw, Hadwen, Cardoso, Slee, Roberts, Thomas and Barnes2016).
This research has empirically investigated ways to strengthen whole-school approaches to address the factors that promote student social and emotional wellbeing and capabilities to reduce all forms of bullying (including cyberbullying) in primary and secondary schools. Two large formative studies, the first conducted in 1999 and then updated in 2011 (to include cyberbullying) synthesised national and international bullying-related research into best practice principles that were co-developed and validated by leading international bullying prevention researchers (Cross et al., Reference Cross, Pintabona, Hall, Hamilton, Erceg and Roberts2003; Cross et al., Reference Cross, Pintabona, Hall, Hamilton and Erceg2004; Pearce et al., Reference Pearce, Cross, Monks, Waters and Falconer2011). These principles and input from school staff, families and students informed the research questions, content and approach of a series of randomised control intervention trials in primary schools and secondary schools (Cross et al., Reference Cross, Monks, Hall, Shaw, Pintabona, Erceg, Hamilton, Roberts, Waters and Lester2011; Cross et al., Reference Cross, Runions, Shaw, Wong, Campbell, Pearce, Burns, Lester, Barnes and Resnicow2019; Cross et al., Reference Cross, Waters, Pearce, Shaw, Hall, Erceg, Burns, Roberts and Hamilton2012). Findings from these studies and consumers informed the adaption of these resources to respond to specific higher bullying risk contexts, including cyberbullying (Cross et al., Reference Cross, Barnes, Papageorgiou, Hadwen, Hearn and Lester2015); critical periods of change, such as the transition from primary school to secondary school (Cross, Shaw et al., Reference Cross, Shaw, Epstein, Pearce, Barnes, Burns, Waters, Lester and Runions2018); and more specialised support for students frequently involved in bullying behaviour (e.g., Cross, Runions et al., Reference Cross, Runions, Resnicow, Britt and Gray2018; Pennell et al., Reference Pennell, Campbell, Tangen, Runions, Brooks and Cross2020) and who require more culturally or contextually co-designed interventions, such as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students (Coffin et al., Reference Coffin, Larson and Cross2010), and students who face chronic physical health conditions, such as deafness or hard of hearing (Kishida et al., Reference Kishida, Brennan-Jones, Vithiatharan, Hancock, Runions, Brown, Eikelboom, Coffin, Kickett-Tucker, Li, Epstein, Rahamathulla, Falconer and Cross2021).
How Can Friendly Schools’ Research Support School Counsellors as Part of a Whole-School Approach to Bullying Prevention?
Our research provides many insights about (a) what to do (and what not to do) in what contexts to target students’ strengths and needs; (b) what policy and practices appear to be most effective as part of a whole-school approach to bullying prevention; and (c) ways to maximise the implementation of these policies and practices to improve student social and emotional wellbeing and to address all forms of bullying behaviour. Importantly, we found that to achieve sustained and impactful change, schools need more than one champion working alone. Instead, schools require a multiskilled team, well informed by their own school-level data and genuinely engaged with the school community to drive decision making and action.
So, what does Friendly Schools and other similar school bullying prevention research recommend school counsellors consider as part of their role? Friendly Schools provides a comprehensive framework for intervention for school leaders, teachers, school allied health staff (especially school counsellors) and students to implement effective whole-school strategies. School counsellors clearly have unique skills and opportunities afforded by schools to reduce bullying and its harms and have potential to support the skill development of other school staff whose limited training may exacerbate bullying problems. These opportunities are described below within the prevention continuum of care. The term ‘school counsellor’ is used in this article to include all members of the allied health team within schools who are professionally trained to support students’ mental and emotional wellbeing.
Prevention
Given our research found that students who have conflict with school staff are more likely to be bullied and to be bullied more severely (Runions & Shaw, Reference Runions and Shaw2013), and to experience increasing problems with aggression (Runions, Reference Runions2014; Runions et al., Reference Runions, Vitaro, Shaw, Cross, Hall and Boivin2014), Friendly Schools focuses on enabling staff to build positive relationships with students (and their students’ families). Efforts by staff to build positive student relationships show students that school staff care about them, increasing the likelihood of students seeking help because they believe staff will take action if they report bullying (Oliver & Candappa, Reference Oliver and Candappa2007). Students are also more likely to approach school staff who are perceived as helpful and fair and who can effectively deal with conflict (Rigby & Bagshaw, Reference Rigby and Bagshaw2003). This suggests the importance of school counsellors creating opportunities to build positive relationships with, or at least be known to, students, so students may feel more comfortable approaching counsellors for help. Friendly Schools’ strategies recommend counsellors (time permitting) use informal activities such as joining student camps, visiting classrooms, presenting at assemblies, or participating occasionally in student co-curricular activities to build relationships with students. Some study schools have also changed the location and physical environment around counsellors’ offices to enhance student confidentiality, comfort and accessibility (Pearce et al., Reference Pearce, Monks, Hearn, Burns, Runions, Francis and Cross2021).
We also found that students who perceive a positive school culture and report greater school connectedness and more peer support were more likely to tell a school staff member about their difficulties if they were bullied (Shaw et al., Reference Shaw, Campbell, Eastham, Runions, Salmivalli and Cross2019), compared with those who experience a less positive school culture, less connectedness and less peer support (Bradshaw et al., Reference Bradshaw, Sawyer and O’Brennan2007). The actions of all school staff feed into students’ perceptions of school culture, so if students who are bullied or who witness bullying perceive the school culture is tolerant of bullying, they will be reluctant to seek help (Cortes & Kochenderfer-Ladd, Reference Cortes and Kochenderfer-Ladd2014; Eliot et al., Reference Eliot, Cornell, Gregory and Fan2010). This reluctance is even greater if students perceive the risks (perceived helpfulness of the teachers, confidentiality, and potential loss of friendship or retaliation) outweigh the benefits (Bradshaw et al., Reference Bradshaw, Sawyer and O’Brennan2007). For school counsellors, it is critical that students, especially those with high needs, are willing to seek and receive help.
Our research identified two prevalence peaks in bullying behaviour in Australian schools, the first at 10–11 years of age, and the second following their transition from primary to secondary school (aged 12–13 years of age; Lester et al., Reference Lester, Cross, Shaw and Dooley2012). We found that both boys (20%) and girls (25%) worry about being bullied when they get to high school (Waters et al., Reference Waters, Lester and Cross2014), and that boys with friendship problems in Grade 7 are twice as likely to be bullied over the next three years (Lester & Cross, Reference Lester and Cross2014). These findings demonstrate the transitory nature of bullying and the importance of professional staff helping to prevent or ameliorate bullying behaviour prior to age 10, building social support and friendships, and resolving bullying experiences in primary school before students transition to secondary school.
The mental health difficulties students can experience peak during adolescence and in the transition to high school, with the proportion of students experiencing depression increasing by 60% from primary school, and rates of other emotional difficulties doubling from Grade 7 and 9 (Lester & Cross, Reference Lester and Cross2014). Some students can be particularly vulnerable to these mental health issues if they are also bullied (Lester et al., Reference Lester, Cross, Shaw and Dooley2012). While the closeness of parent-child relationships is an important protective factor during this time, the school counsellor’s role is critical to guide school actions to meet students’ needs during this challenging period of development and transition.
Our research found it was important to enable students, especially in secondary schools, to genuinely contribute to others’ pastoral care and encourage and support students who are bullied to seek professional advice from school counsellors if needed (Carlisle et al., Reference Carlisle, Fildes, Hall, Hicking, Perrens and Plummer2018; Lawrence et al., Reference Lawrence, Johnson, Hafekost, Boterhoven De Haan, Sawyer, Ainley and Zubrick2015). Further, a ‘culture of care’ needs to be part of school policy and actively promoted and expected of the whole-school community to discourage bullying behaviour and promote students’ social and emotional development.
Early Intervention
Students who have been victimised for a longer duration and with greater severity are more likely to be seen by school counsellors and other school staff (Blomqvist et al., Reference Blomqvist, Saarento-Zaprudin and Salmivalli2020; Boulton, Reference Boulton2014; Shaw et al., Reference Shaw, Campbell, Eastham, Runions, Salmivalli and Cross2019; Smith & Shu, Reference Smith and Shu2000; Yablon, Reference Yablon2017). Other studies have identified factors, such as peer disapproval, that predict whether students will tell adults at school about their situation (Bauman et al., Reference Bauman, Meter, Nixon and Davis2016). A study with British secondary school students found large majorities reported they would not tell a teacher about bullying even if it stopped the bullying, if it led to disapproval from their peers (76%) or left them feeling weak or undermined (64%; Boulton et al., Reference Boulton, Boulton, Down, Sanders and Craddock2017). School staff, and particularly counsellors, need to take positive action to reduce bullying and its harms well before students reach Grade 8, when these perceptions and behaviour patterns appear to consolidate.
Engaging with families
Friendly Schools’ research investigating the effectiveness of whole-school strategies that engage parents found significant increases in the frequency of their discussions about bullying, and significant improvements in fathers’ perceptions of their influence on their children’s responses to being bullied (Lester et al., Reference Lester, Pearce, Waters, Barnes, Beatty and Cross2017). This finding supports school counsellors’ efforts to secure the involvement of parents when helping students who have experienced bullying, especially in secondary school when attitudes toward reporting bullying to adults are diminishing.
Providing cultural security
To provide a culturally secure whole-school approach, a Friendly Schools project, ‘Solid Kids, Solid Schools’, was co-designed by Aboriginal Elders, young people and community members as well as local Aboriginal (Yamaji) people. This research observed that Australian Aboriginal students experience bullying in different ways to non-Aboriginal children, hence Yamaji community members co-developed and pilot-tested specific cultural resources, including a website, to develop culturally safe knowledge and skills for school staff to address bullying as it may be experienced by Aboriginal young people, and to reduce their harm from bullying (Coffin et al., Reference Coffin, Larson and Cross2010). This research demonstrated the importance of schools involving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander school staff and establishing partnerships with key Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander agencies in communities and working closely with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families to ensure culturally relevant and safe support is provided to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. School counsellor linkages with all cultural groups in school communities are critical to serve the needs of students who experience bullying, especially when bullying is related to racial or cultural differences.
Increasing help-seeking behaviour
Interestingly, our research found students who had previously reported bullying as a witness were more likely to seek help if they experienced bullying — especially if they were physically bullied (Shaw et al., Reference Shaw, Campbell, Eastham, Runions, Salmivalli and Cross2019). In contrast, students who were cyberbullied reported being less likely to seek help than those bullied in noncyber ways (Dooley et al., Reference Dooley, Gradinger, Strohmeier, Cross and Spiel2010). Student witnesses of bullying must therefore also be treated seriously by school staff, to demonstrate the quality and safety of school reporting processes.
Friendly Schools’ research found only 38% of students in Grades 7–9 who were targets of bullying spoke with a school staff member about it, 53% told another adult, and 48% told a friend or sibling (Shaw et al., Reference Shaw, Campbell, Eastham, Runions, Salmivalli and Cross2019). This low rate of help seeking was particularly true for students who identify as male, and secondary school students (Cardoso et al., Reference Cardoso, Thomas, Johnston and Cross2012; Lawrence et al., Reference Lawrence, Johnson, Hafekost, Boterhoven De Haan, Sawyer, Ainley and Zubrick2015). Our research suggests that school counsellors may need to provide bridging actions, such as initial online contact (particularly for boys), and empower students to accompany bullied students to seek help when they need it.
Perceived barriers to telling an adult about bullying victimisation may change as children become adolescents. Friendly Schools’ research collected data twice over a one-year period from students in Grades 7–9 (13- to 15-year-olds) who reported being victimised, and the type of help they sought from staff members (Shaw et al., Reference Shaw, Campbell, Eastham, Runions, Salmivalli and Cross2019). We found the impact of telling a staff member about the bullying differed according to the severity of the victimisation. For students who had experienced less severe victimisation, telling a staff member clearly benefitted them, with lower odds of being victimised at time 2 and also better psychological outcomes. The students who were most severely victimised at time 1 and who told a staff member about it were found to have experienced fewer internalising problems than those with severe bullying who did not tell, even though their exposure to bullying did not improve at time 2. This suggests that telling a staff member, especially a trained counsellor, may protect against more adverse mental health outcomes for severely bullied students (Shaw et al., Reference Shaw, Campbell, Eastham, Runions, Salmivalli and Cross2019).
Treatment
Who are most vulnerable to bullying?
Targeted approaches to help students who are bullied largely focus on supporting victimised students, based on research showing that psychologically vulnerable children may be a prime target for bullying (Delfabbro et al., Reference Delfabbro, Winefield, Trainor, Dollard, Anderson, Metzer and Hammarstrom2006). Friendly Schools’ research found that compared to students who were only victimised or only bullied others, those who both bullied others and were victimised experienced the greatest mental health difficulties. This ‘bully-victim’ status was found to be associated with negative self-cognitions, externalising problems, poor social competence, poor academic performance, difficult school climate, low peer status and negative peer influence (Lester et al., Reference Lester, Cross, Shaw and Dooley2012). More recent research has found that bully-victim status is also associated with heightened motives for aggression, including rage, revenge and recreational motives (Runions et al., Reference Runions, Salmivalli, Shaw, Burns and Cross2018). Both bully-victims and those who perpetrate bullying without being victimised themselves also show proclivities to moral disengagement that can fuel bullying and antisocial behaviour (Runions et al., Reference Runions, Shaw, Bussey, Thornberg, Salmivalli and Cross2019). Students who bully, and in particular those who are bully-victims, need to be provided with professional support to ameliorate these potential harms, and to help them to cope and change their bullying behaviour. Friendly Schools has demonstrated that a comprehensive response via whole-school intervention can reduce students’ experiences of depression, anxiety, loneliness and stress, and provide an improved sense of safety at school (Cross, Lester et al., Reference Cross, Lester, Pearce, Barnes and Beatty2018)
Cyberbullying and help seeking — a special case?
Friendly Schools’ research found that students who were cyberbullied report significantly higher levels of depression compared to those who were not cyberbullied, even after statistically accounting for traditional bullying victimisation (Perren et al., Reference Perren, Dooley, Shaw and Cross2010). Cyberbullying is a significant robust and unique predictor of somatic symptoms and overall health, beyond noncyber relational and physical victimisation (Baier et al., Reference Baier, Hong, Kliem and Bergmann2019). Furthermore, students who are victimised both offline and online are more likely to experience greater overall harm than those who are only targeted in one setting (Khong et al., Reference Khong, Tan, Elliott, Fung, Sourander and Ong2020). Thus, cyberbullying victimisation appears to contribute additional harm on top of any traditional bullying experiences, with its own additional negative impact in the lives of students — making cyberbullying an important risk factor to consider when counselling students.
Students in our research reported that their teachers typically had insufficient knowledge and skills to help them if they were bullied, and especially if they were cyberbullied (Dooley et al., Reference Dooley, Shaw and Cross2012; Patterson et al., Reference Patterson, Allan and Cross2017). This has important implications for school staff, especially if cyberbullying continues to increase in prevalence as digital technologies become even more pervasive in students’ lives, and at younger ages. Most school staff, including school counsellors, require training to build their confidence and competence to provide meaningful help to students experiencing cyberbullying, and to increase the likelihood that students will seek adult help for this type of bullying behaviour.
Whole-school interventions can, however, reduce cyberbullying behaviour. The ‘Cyber Friendly Schools’ intervention trial, conducted in secondary schools, was found to significantly reduce the odds of student involvement in cyber victimisation and cyber perpetration compared to schools that did not receive the intervention (Cross et al., Reference Cross, Shaw, Hadwen, Cardoso, Slee, Roberts, Thomas and Barnes2016). Although this intervention demonstrated some promise in secondary schools, the increasing prevalence of cyberbullying among younger children suggests school staff need to be alert to primary school students’ bullying experiences and consider ways to reduce students’ exposure to risk when using internet-connected devices at younger ages, more frequently, and with less supervision.
In addition to the amount of time young people spend online, currently the most robust predictor of cyberbullying perpetration is noncyberbullying perpetration, and the most robust predictor of cyber victimisation is noncyber victimisation (Kowalski et al., Reference Kowalski, Giumetti, Schroeder and Lattanner2014). Hence, the most effective way for all school staff to reduce cyberbullying is to reduce bullying behaviour in general.
Treating bullying perpetration as a health problem as well as a behaviour problem
While the effects of bullying on students who are targeted are typically recognised, the elevated risks faced by perpetrators of bullying, and bully-victims, may challenge perceptions of bullying and who is at risk, and highlights the importance of school counsellors supporting behaviour change among perpetrators of bullying. Research shows that many students who bully others may also be deeply troubled and themselves deserving of care. Students who perpetrate bullying are more likely to be low in empathy, show tendencies toward callousness and unemotionality (Zych, Baldry et al., Reference Zych, Baldry, Farrington and Llorent2019b), hold challenging motives for aggression (Runions et al., Reference Runions, Salmivalli, Shaw, Burns and Cross2018) and tendencies toward moral disengagement (Runions et al., Reference Runions, Shaw, Bussey, Thornberg, Salmivalli and Cross2019), as well as personality profiles (low in agreeableness and conscientiousness; Mitsopoulou & Giovazolias, Reference Mitsopoulou and Giovazolias2015) that might befit individual psychological counselling.
Few intervention studies show any effect on mental health outcomes among students who perpetrate bullying. Swearer et al. (Reference Swearer, Espelage, Vaillancourt and Hymel2010) suggest the limited effectiveness of whole-school bullying programs on mental health outcomes may be partly due to schoolwide (universal) programs aiming to reach all students, whereas only a proportion of these students (10–20%) may be engaged in perpetration of bullying. Direct intervention with students who bully others is key to whole-school bullying interventions to support and encourage positive behaviour change (Swearer et al., Reference Swearer, Espelage, Vaillancourt and Hymel2010).
Limited empirical research has been conducted to determine the effectiveness of typical school responses to perpetrators of bullying. The four most commonly targeted responses in Australian schools include (a) punitive approaches; and three nonpunitive approaches: (b) Method of Shared Concern (Pikas, Reference Pikas2002); (c) Support Group Method (Robinson & Maines, Reference Robinson and Maines2007); and (d) Restorative Justice (Bowles et al., Reference Bowles, Reyes and Pradiptyo2005). The effectiveness of the nonpunitive approaches largely relies on the perpetrator feeling remorse for their behaviour and/or empathy for their victim(s). But mechanisms that serve the function of moral disengagement, — for example, via processes of victim blame and dehumanisation — may operate to negate empathy for the victim (e.g., Bandura, Reference Bandura1999). These cognitive restricting mechanisms may explain how students engage in bullying behaviour, even though 99% of students know bullying is ‘wrong’ (Bussey et al., Reference Bussey, Fitzpatrick and Raman2015). Nevertheless, research shows over 50% of students who bully others do not feel sorry for their behaviour and will not readily be concerned about the harm the bullying is causing to the target, and thus would be unlikely to be ready to make positive change to their behaviour (Borg, Reference Borg1998).
Our research also found that some students who bully report feeling good about their bullying behaviour (Burns et al., Reference Burns, Cross, Alfonso and Maycock2008) and do not report any guilt associated with their bullying behaviours (Olweus, Reference Olweus, Peters, McMahon and Quincy1992). Further, significantly more secondary than primary students who perpetrated bullying felt satisfied and indifferent to their behaviour. Researchers investigating callous-unemotional traits (CU) found higher levels of CU traits were associated with reduced affective empathy and higher levels of direct bullying among young adolescents (Viding et al., Reference Viding, Simmonds, Petrides and Frederickson2009). Hence, current targeted interventions such as the Method of Shared Concern are unlikely to be effective with students with CU traits because of their difficulties with empathy (Viding et al., Reference Viding, Simmonds, Petrides and Frederickson2009). Solberg et al. (Reference Solberg, Olweus and Endresen2007) found the Method of Shared Concern (Rigby & Griffiths, Reference Rigby and Griffiths2008) to be less effective in 15% of cases where the perpetrator felt highly provoked by the victimised student, and where they were less likely to be concerned about the target, or to want to make changes to improve the situation (Solberg et al., Reference Solberg, Olweus and Endresen2007). This demonstrates the need, particularly at the secondary school level, for targeted interventions led by trained school counsellors to support students who bully others, that do not rely on or assume empathy for students being bullied and a willingness to make amends or change their bullying behaviour.
Further, theory of mind, which refers to the ability to understand the mental and emotional states of others (Sutton et al., Reference Sutton, Smith and Sweetenham1999), challenges the traditional stereotype of perpetrators as being deficient in social skills and unable to understand the emotions of others. The Social Skills Deficit model (Crick & Dodge, Reference Crick and Dodge1994), which forms the basis of most current targeted restorative interventions such as the Method of Shared Concern, suggests that enabling students to see the harm from their bullying behaviour would lead to them stop bullying. Several studies testing this hypothesis have found that students who bully others score significantly higher on social cognition than do other involved students (Gini, Reference Gini2006; Sutton et al., Reference Sutton, Smith and Sweetenham1999), suggesting that many bullying perpetrators have good, even advanced, theory of mind capacities and do have the requisite social skills and social understandings, which may place them at an advantage among peers that can be crucial to their role in bullying (Sutton et al., Reference Sutton, Smith and Sweetenham1999). Hence, as it appears that students who feel no remorse or empathy for the victimised student may have well developed capacities for social cognition and/or may feel provoked, traditional targeted approaches by school staff may be insufficient to facilitate behaviour change.
A promising targeted intervention tested by the Friendly Schools’ research called ‘Beyond Bullying’ is ‘Motivational Interviewing’ (Cross et al., Reference Cross, Runions, Shaw, Wong, Campbell, Pearce, Burns, Lester, Barnes and Resnicow2019). Motivational Interviewing has been used successfully with adolescents to reduce violent behaviour, drug use and eating disorders (Erickson et al., 2005; Reference Erickson, Gerstle and Feldstein2005; Woodin & O’Leary, Reference Woodin and O’Leary2010) and has potential to be useful with the subset of bullying perpetrators who have advanced social cognitive skills and use them to their advantage. Motivational Interviewing seeks to elicit the motivations behind an individual’s behaviour and can direct them to other more socially appropriate means of achieving these goals (Hettema et al., Reference Hettema, Steele and Miller2005). We tested the use of Motivational Interviewing with entrenched bullying behaviours to support students to identify and act upon their own motivations for engaging in bullying (Cross, Runions et al., Reference Cross, Runions, Resnicow, Britt and Gray2018). Our research identified important barriers to implementation of this approach, as well as implementation enablers (Pennell et al., Reference Pennell, Campbell, Tangen, Runions, Brooks and Cross2020) that will support future trials of innovative responses to bullying. This research, however, suggests it is promising for school counsellors to support bullying perpetrator behaviour change (Cross, Runions et al., Reference Cross, Runions, Resnicow, Britt and Gray2018).
Conclusion
Despite the many demands placed on their time and expertise, school counsellors have a unique and critical role to prevent, identify and ameliorate the effects of bullying for students who are victimised, and those who are engaged in bullying others. Although the professional training provided to school counsellors makes them the most obvious staff members to respond to the effects of bullying, their contribution alone is not sufficient to achieve lasting change. Friendly Schools’ research suggests schools also need to harness the cumulative benefits of whole-school policies and practices that build a positive school culture and student connectedness to staff and their peers; deliver quality pedagogy and social and emotional learning curriculum; and provide a safe physical and supportive social environment with strong parent and community partnerships to sustainably promote student social and emotional wellbeing and reduce bullying.
Acknowledgments
We acknowledge the 30,000 students, their teachers and families who contributed to the Friendly Schools’ research described in this article, and the many researchers over the past 21 years who contributed to the conduct of this research.
Funding
Donna Cross’s contribution to this paper was supported by an NHMRC Research Fellowship GNT 1119339.
