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Lorraine Demko: Lorraine Demko is Senior Health Promotion Adviser for Eastern Surrey Health Promotion, which is now part of the newly formed Eastern Surrey Health Commission. She can be contacted on 01372 731015 for more information on this project
Bullying at school affects an estimated 1.5 million young people, making it probably the most underrated problem in Britain's schools today. Bullying can cause mental health problems which may affect people long after their school days are over. Pupils' academic success may also be at risk if they feel threatened and intimidated.
Persistent bullying may be verbal, physical or psychological, or a combination of these. It can include kicking, shoving, name-calling, intimidation or torment, as well as the fear of being bullied. Apart from making the victim miserable, bullying can lead to bedwetting, nightmares, faking illness, truancy, physical injury and, in extreme cases, to suicide.
There is, however, no evidence to suggest that the conventional method of tackling bullying - punishment of the bully - is effective. A new and somewhat controversial method of tackling bullying in schools - the no-blame approach - is therefore being promoted by Eastern Surrey Health Commission to see if it can reduce the incidence of bullying behaviour, and encourage the victims to tell others what has happened.
Research carried out by Peter Smith of the Department of Psychology at the University of Sheffield, for the Department for Education[1], showed that most victims do not tell anyone. The no-blame approach is controversial because it rejects punitive ways of dealing with bullying behaviour, in favour of a non-punitive approach. Eastern Surrey Health Promotion believes that if punitive ways of dealing with bullying worked, bullying would not present such an enormous problem.
Group dynamics
The no-blame approach is a whole-school approach. It relies on group dynamics and the empathy of the group members. The method puts the emphasis on the effects of bullying on the victim's feelings and emotions, rather than on the ins and outs of what occurred. You do need to know who was involved in the bullying incident. Instead of being punished, bullies are involved in looking at how their actions have affected the victim.
The approach was developed by Barbara Maines, an educational psychologist in Avon, and George Robinson,...