There is never a hero around when you need one… Mobilising action to

enhance student social wellbeing

Donna CrossProfessor, Child and Adolescent Health

Presentation overview

• Links between pastoral care and academic outcomes

• Major trends in pastoral care…(eg: Bully movie)• What’s needed for success? Less is more…• Help seeking - help provision (First aid)• What does this mean for practice?

Bystanders providing help

• Tomatoes…

Pastoral care and learning?

• Pastoral care is the ‘oil of learning’

• Pastoral care is not the destination but the nourishment for the learning journey …

(Mann 2006)

Links between pastoral care and academic outcomes?

• Emotions can facilitate or impede children’s:– Academic engagement– Work ethic– Commitment– Ultimately their school success

• Relationships and emotional processes affect how and why we learn

(Elias et al 1997)

Growing evidence…

• Effective mastery of social and emotional competencies is associated with greater wellbeing and better school performance

(Eisenberg, 2006;Guerra and Bradshaw, 2008)

• Child development study found improvements in the psychosocial environment of the school mediated almost all of the positive student outcomes

(Solomon et al, 2000)

Student wellbeing trends…

What are the major trends in pastoral care in your school?

How are these changing and

within which groups?

In a Year 10 class of 30 students

• used alcohol in last month… 14 (White & Smith, 2009)

• binge drink weekly… 1 (AIHW, 2011)

• binge drink monthly… 4 (AIHW, 2011)

In a Year 10 class of 30 students

• tried smoking… 10 (White & Smith, 2009)

• ever used marijuana… 5 (White & Smith, 2009)

• used marijuana in past week… 2 (White & Smith, 2009)

In a Year 10 class of 30 students

• sun-burnt on summer weekends… 7 (AIHW, 2011)

• not sufficiently physically active… 7 (AIHW, 2011)

• seriously injured on the roads… 8 (Henley & Harrison, 2012)

In a Year 10 class of 30 students

• moderate or severe psychological distress… 7 (Wilson et al 2010)

• suicidal thoughts/plans once a month+… 3 (Wilson et al 2010)

• self-harmed in the last month… 2 (Martin et al 2010)

30% high school students engage in multiple high risk behaviours that interfere with school performance and jeopardise their potential for life success

(Eaton et al, 2008; Dryfoos, 1997)

Issues of Personal Concern

National Survey of Young Australians 2011, Mission Australia N= 45 916

%

Possible trends - help provision

• ‘Resisting’ traditional help• Technology help - support• Individual help seeking• Peer help - support• Delaying conversations…• Pastoral care warp and weft

Defining pastoral care

If poorly defined pastoral care can be anything and everything….

Pastoral care

Defining pastoral care

• Traditional definitions• Fostering children’s moral development • Values of mutual respect through extra-curricular

activities

• Today, wellbeing is increasing attributed to:• School conditions• School relationships• Means of fulfilment• Health status

A review process…

A Starting Point: Map the Gap Tool

Six core strategy components:1. Building capacity for action – committed leadership and

organisational support

2. Proactive policies, plans and practices

3. Supportive school climate

4. Curriculum teaching and learning

5. Protective physical environment

6. School-family-community partnerships

7.More for less?

Whole of school approach

Curriculum, teaching and learning

School organisation, ethos and

environment

Partnerships and services

Promotion and Universal Prevention

Selective Prevention

Indicated Prevention

Case Work

Whole School Approaches

Targeted Approaches for Groups

Targeted Approaches for Individuals

Individual Case Work

Department of Education Pathways to Health and Well-Being (2001)

Delivery balance for health and wellbeing

Prevention

Intervention

Treatment

Whole school environment promoting competence, health and wellbeing

Students with high support needs 20-30%

Students needing additional intervention 3-12%

Pastoral Care Process

Pastoral care requires a multi-component approach, comprising 5 main school-level tasks:

1.Proactive, preventative pastoral care: Activities and educational processes that anticipate ‘critical incidents’ in children’s lives and aim to prevent and reduce the need for reactive casework.  

2.Developmental pastoral curricula: Curricula developed to promote personal, social, moral, spiritual and cultural development and wellbeing through distinctive programmes, tutorial work and extracurricular activities.  

Pastoral Care Process

3. The promotion and maintenance of an orderly and supportive / collaborative environment: building a community within the school, creating supportive systems and positive relations between all members of the community, and promoting a strong ethos of mutual care and concern.

4. Reactive pastoral casework: ‘Open door’ guidance and counselling, peer support and mentoring, welfare network (link between school, home and external agencies such as social services).

5. The management and administration of pastoral care: the process of planning, resourcing, monitoring, evaluating, encouraging and facilitating all of the above.

What are the major outcomes for pastoral care in your school?

Do students feel comfortable seeking help?

Not bullied

Bullied told someone

Bullied told someone

25%

Help seeking

(Fekkes, Pljpers & Verloove-Vanhorick, 2005)

Asking an adult for help

Who helps?

Who helps?

86 85 85 86

74 74 73 75

11 11 11 11

19 20 23 26

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

2007 2008 2009 2010

Friends

Parents

Teacher / Counsellor / Youth worker

Internet

With whom did cyber bullied students talk?

32 31

14

32

12

29

42

20

31

9

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

No-one Friend (not adult)

Brother/sister Parent/other adult

Teacher

Boys

Girls

%

Peers who provide help?

Impact of technology on social skills?

30

Social information processing…

Behavioural expectations…

“You can’t pull up your socks if you don’t know what your socks are”

From The Football Wisdom of Guru Bob 1998

Friendly Schools Plus

THE INCIDENT

COLLABORATORS

POTENTIAL VICTIMS

BYSTANDERS

THE BYSTANDER Social Responsibility

Rigby, K (2001) Stop the Bullying: a Handbook for Schools ACER

Consequences of bystander actions

Bystanders who witness repetitive abuse such as bullying:

– Experience considerable distress that continues into adulthood (Janson et al, 2004)

– Elevated mental health risks among 12-16 yr olds - over above that experienced by those involved in the bullying (Rivers et al, 2009)

Bystanders can escalate bullying by:– Being present (silent approval) (O’Connell et al, 1999)

– Their actions – especially reinforcing behaviours (Salmivalli et al, 2011)

Bystanders

Peers are present as onlookers in 85% of bullying interactions, and play a central role in the bullying

process(Hawkins et al, 2001)

Bystanders “can be part of the problem or part of the solution”

Students taking action

20-30% of students are taking the supporter action load…

Behaviours of bystanders

– Assisting (20-30%)– Reinforcing (20-30%)– Defending / supporting (20%)– Reporting / No action (26-30%)

(Salmivalli et al 1999; Salmivalli et al1998) 30%)

girlsyounger

Actions as bystanders

• Students who:– See and hear bullying most likely to tell another student (66%)– Tell the person bullying to stop (53%)– Help the person being bullied at time (42%)– Get someone to help stop bullying (40%)

• Witnessed and action…– 39% told parent– 37% helped the person later on– 29% told an adult at school– 40% did nothing– 29% ignored

(Cross et al, 2009)

Motivation to intervene

• Students’ motivation to intervene is related to: – Normative perceptions (Sandstrom et al, 2012)

– Perceived harm to target (Thornberg et al, 2012)

– Social status of person bullying relative to their own (Thornberg et al, 2012)

– Perceive it is none of their business/ not their moral responsibility

– Outcomes they expect from intervening and if they value these outcomes (Poyhonen et al, 2012)

– Their popularity (Poyhonen et al, 2012)

– Relationship to the target – ‘caretaker role’ (Bellmore et al, 2012)

– A strong sense of social justice (Cappadocia et al, 2012)

Bystander norms

• You shouldn’t pick on someone weaker81.5% - Year 483% - Year 6

• I feel uncomfortable watching bullying

72% - Year 4

63% - Year 6 • I like it when someone stands up for bullied

students

81% - Year 4

88% - Year 6

When peers intervene positively students:

– Stop the bullying within 10 seconds (Hawkins et al.,

2001)

– Are less likely to assign blame to victimised students (Davis, 2010)

– Have a more positive perception of school climate (Davis, 2010)

– Have a greater sense of safety at school (Davis,

2010)

– Reconciliation occurred more quickly when bystanders (Fujisawa et al, 2005)

– Have less social and mental health problems (Sainio, Veenstra, Huitsing, & Salmivalli, 2009)

When peers intervene positively students:

– Reduce repeated victimisation one year later (Sianio et al, 2009)

– Perceive action more helpful than help from adults and their own actions (Davis et al, 2010)

– Provide pro-social support that is less confrontational than adults (Hazler, 1996)

Bystander behaviour may be the easiest to change…

• Interventions to address bystanders most effective in secondary schools 20% increase in bystander intervention behaviour (Polanin et al, 2012)

• Reduced negative peer perceptions and increased empathy and self efficacy for constructive bystander behaviours (Salmivalli et al, 2012)

• Dobbing – Is getting someone into trouble

• Seeking help for someone being bullied

– Is getting someone out of trouble

Changing the way we think about helping…

What do students need?

AS BYSTANDERS…• Clear ethos of behavioural expectations – social norms

(included in policy)• Practise, practise… social inoculation theory … with

socially credible peers• Pro-social modelling• Diffusion of responsibility - Peer supporter threshold• Practical, well publicised, consistently delivered policies

(involving students)• Hot spots help

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EA5C-1N_r1w

DVD Anti-bullying

Learning and Teaching Resource ALTER

“Fix It”

Catholic Diocese of Wollongong, 2012

What does this all mean for practice?

• Location of office• Online counselling• Self help support eg: websites helplines• School psychologists known to students• Prevention versus management / case load• Student perception of control• First aid training for mental health• ‘Approachable’ teachers training / referal

Next practice?

• Peers as pastoral carers

• Online help provision and advice…

• Social information processing

• Pastoral care of staff / parents

• Diffusion of responsibility? Peer supporter threshold

• Prepared for ‘chaos’ / first aid

“In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

Martin Luther King Jr