School Violence: Prevention

Research shows that prevention efforts – by teachers, administrators, parents, community members, and even students – can reduce violence and improve the overall school environment. Prevention efforts should ultimately reduce risk factors and promote protective factors at multiple levels of influence, including the individual, relationship, community, and societal levels.

Individual Level Strategies

Studies show universal, school-based prevention programs reduce rates of aggression and violent behavior among students.¹ These programs are delivered to all students in a school or a particular grade and focus on many areas, including emotional self-awareness, emotional control, self-esteem, positive social skills, social problem solving, conflict resolution, and teamwork.

Relationship Level Strategies

Effective school-based prevention programs incorporate a number of relationship level strategies designed to promote more positive connections between youth and their peers, teachers, and families.

For instance, through encouraging youth to serve as active bystanders, students are more likely to intervene to stop school violence episodes. Programs also aim to improve social skills and social problem solving with peers, which can result in more positive peer relationships throughout the school.

Broader school climate changes are also necessary.  Teachers should convey attitudes that do not support violence and create positive relationships with students so that students feel comfortable approaching teachers about violence-related issues.

Finally, by enhancing parent involvement in both academic and social aspects of their children’s school experiences - including involving parents in prevention programs - family cohesion and connections are improved. Interventions that involve the family, especially those that start early, can have substantial, long-term effects in reducing violent behavior.²

Community Level Strategies

Strategies at this level focus on modifying community characteristics, including school settings that either promote or inhibit violence. Schools have made numerous efforts to improve the overall environment and to reduce negative outcomes, such as violence. These include improved classroom management practices, promoting cooperative learning techniques, teacher/staffing practices, student monitoring and supervision, and reducing bullying by involving parents/caregivers.³

In addition to the social environment of a school, research suggests that proper environmental design can reduce crime and fear. ⁴ An effectively-designed environment can improve the overall quality of life.  Features of the school environment that could influence safety include natural surveillance such as low or no bushes or shrubbery blocking the view from building windows; limiting access to the building through identified entrances and exits that are continually monitored; territoriality such as prominently displaying the school mascot or logo; physical maintenance such as making sure the building structure is sound; and order maintenance such as making sure all of the lights in the building are working.

Further, making changes in communities can also help decrease violence.  Given links between a lack of supervision and youth violence, communities can provide youth with more formal and informal supervision opportunities, such as through after school or mentoring programs, or recreational activities. Further, community representatives should take an active role in prevention programs, to demonstrate their commitment to ending school violence.

Societal Level Strategies

Strategies to change the social and cultural climate to reduce youth violence are often difficult and infrequently used. Examples of strategies that may facilitate lasting change include addressing social norms in schools and reforming educational systems and policies at the institutional level.⁵

References

1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The effectiveness of universal school-based programs for the prevention of violent and aggressive behavior: a report on recommendations of the Task Force on Community Preventive Services. MMWR 2007;56(RR-7):1-12.
2. Dahlberg LL, Butchart A. State of the science: violence prevention efforts in developing and developed countries. International Journal of Injury Control and Safety Promotion 2005;12(2):93–104.
3. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Best practices of youth violence prevention: a sourcebook for community action (rev). Atlanta (GA): Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control; 2002.
4. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Using environmental design to prevent school violence [cited 2008 Feb. 25]. Available from URL: http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/youthviolence/cpted.html
5. Mercy J, Butchart A, Farrington D, Cerdá M. Youth Violence. In: Krug E, Dahlberg LL, Mercy JA, Zwi AB, Lozano R, editors. World report on violence and health. Geneva (Switzerland): World Health Organization; 2002. p. 25–56. Available from URL: www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/violence/world_report/en/.