Stories of Us: P3R-PD (USA)
Professional Development Program (Middle School)
This self-contained, staff-run workshop resource is the Professional Development component of our Promoting Positive Peer Relationships (P3R) bullying prevention initiative in America.
Format
Videos and Extensive Facilitator’s Guide
Objective
The Professional Development Resource presents a self-contained, staff-run workshop with the flexibility to be adapted to suit the needs of the school – however, ideally it will involve all staff in a half-day’s training. This resource also includes an Implementation Guide which provides guidelines for implementing an effective bullying prevention program with the P3R multiple resources at its core.
Audience
Middle School Staff
Overview
Students are continually developing new forms of bullying, often more subtle and harder to detect – particularly with the growing use of communication technologies. As one 8th grade teacher commented: “I don’t know I would recognize bullying if I saw it. I don’t know what it looks like anymore.”
The Professional Development workshop is composed of videos and an extensive guide for the staff facilitator, and is presented as a series of modules which schools can select from to focus the training on issues of greatest concern to staff.
The video material includes the two 25 minute middle school films plus 57 minutes of training material featuring three of America’s leading specialists on bullying and school violence (Dr. Dorothy L. Espelage, Professor of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Dr. Shane R. Jimerson, Professor in the Department of Counseling, Clinical, and School Psychology, University of California, Santa Barbara; and Dr. Susan M. Swearer, Professor of Educational Psychology, University of Nebraska – Lincoln). They provide a detailed introduction to bullying and its various types, bullying statistics and the main obstacles to reducing bullying in schools. They also provide analysis and advice on specific issues such as witnessing bullying, the role of bystanders, bullying beyond the school (including cyber-bullying) and how to promote more positive peer relationships.
The Stories of Us films provide a rare insight into what takes place in the school yard (and beyond) from the students’ perspective. As a consequence they are a valuable resource for teachers in building their awareness of bullying from a student perspective. The aim of this resource is to help teachers define and understand what is potentially happening for many of their students, expand their skill-base and provide guidance in creating a safe and supportive environment for students.
A preview of the Teacher’s Guide can be downloaded here as a PDF document.
A 4 minute preview of the film is available above on this page.
Production
The Promoting Positive Peer Relationships (P3R) resources were produced by Readymade’s American subsidiary Stories of Us (USA) LLC, with support from the universities of California (UCSB), Illinois (UIUC) and Nebraska (UNL).