As part of our ongoing training programme, we are currently focusing on refining the skills and procedures that can meet the needs of children and young people at risk of bullying.
We have provided a relevant excerpt of these materials below. They detail some of the specific ways that bullying manifests in a residential care environment, so that it can be addressed accordingly. More information about the full training course that we utilise can be found at the end of this article.
Studying bullying in Care
Bullying can be a serious issue for children and young people of any background, but some are affected by systemic marginalisation in ways that place them at increased risk. Involvement in residential care is no exception, for a variety of reasons.
To quantify this, Gibbs and Sinclair (2012) conducted a study on at 233 young people living in 45 different homes across five local authorities in the UK. They found that:
- The younger the young person was on arrival, the more likely they were to be bullied.
- 70% of 12-year-olds were bullied, in comparison to 50% of 13/14-year-olds and 30% of children aged 15 and over.
What types of bullying?
They observed that the main instances of bullying included:
Additionally, 23% of girls and 7% of boys were observed to experience sexual harassment. A corrolation was found between victimisation in this way and a prior history of abuse.
Signs of bullying
Some possible warning signs that a child is being bullied include the following:
- Unexplained cuts, bruises, and scratches
- Few, if any, friends with whom they spend time
- Broken or missing possessions
- Becoming withdrawn. Not talking, or spending more time alone
- Changes in eating habits
- Changes in behaviour. Becoming aggressive at home
- Sleeping badly
- Complaining of headaches or stomach aches
- Wetting the bed
- Afraid of going to school, walking to and from school, riding the school bus, or taking part in activities
- They take a long or illogical route when walking to or from school, or around school
- Obsessive washing or stopping eating (as a result of being verbally bullied and called “smelly” or “fat”)
How can we stop bullying?
To prevent bullying in a holistic, structured manner, we need to put the following practices into place. All of the points below are expanded upon further in the full training course:
- Develop a bully-free environment
- Get bullying on young people’s agendas
- Supervise and monitor
- Structure leisure time
- Understand relationships between adults and young people
- Correctly manage incidents of bullying
- Deal with instigators appropriately
- Support the victims
We recently published a new training course on anti-bullying measures to our online learning portal. It was developed for us by JSA Training.
JSA Training is part of JSA Psychotherapy, and provides training solutions for providers in the Care sector.
