May - June 2006

Letter from the Director

Dear Readers:

Welcome to the End-of-the-School Year edition of NCSE-News. Included are updates on NCSE activities and special projects scheduled for the summer. See Feature Articles for the latest information on the NCSE Bullying Research sponsored by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP.) Also featured are the results of NCSE Truancy Prevention Contest that took place in April. Congratulations to the groups recognized and thanks to all who participated! An article on creating public awareness campaigns to address truancy is in process and should be released this summer. It will include examples from the entries received as part of the poster contest.

Please be sure to visit Hot Topic for information on Web-based Professional Development (WBPD): Educators and Community Teams Studying Homelessness and High Mobility in Our Schools. NCSE is the sponsor of this national project and is currently recruiting teams across the nation for the third year of WBPD, which begins in August 2006. WBPD involves groups of three people as a "community team" studying the effects of homelessness and high mobility in their local schools. During the 2005-2006 school year 15 community teams from four states participated, including: Arkansas, Colorado, Texas and Virginia.Project Goals include:

1.Connect with educators, advocates, researchers and service providers in their communities to ensure that homeless students receive equitable and excellent services through the public schools.

2.Disseminate findings through the website to reach a broad national audience interested in homeless education.

3.Work to assure that homeless and highly mobile students have the tools and resources they need to graduate from high school and pursue higher education.

If you are interested in WBPD, go to the Hot Topic section and download an application. Be sure ot apply by June 15, 2006.

In addition to preparing for a new school-year of Web-based Professional Development, we at NCSE will be working diligently through the summer on special evaluation and training projects. The updated and more user-friendly version of TRAIN will be released soon. TRAIN is a web-based database that is used as an evaluation tool. It collects information about students participating in truancy reduction programs and tracks their progress. Also in the area of evaluation, NCSE will continue partnering with Creative Options to improve school attendance and reduce truancy in Denver. As part of this effort, NCSE is finalizing a needs assessment process in Denver communities. Watch for the upcoming report. This work is being sponsored by the National Truancy Prevention Association - go to "What's New" on the NCSE website for more information.

In the training department, this summer NCSE staff is scheduled to present information on truancy and school engagement in Colorado, Montana, Kentucky and Washington, D.C. Please email me if you are interested in NCSE presenting at your conference or training to promote school attendance, academic achievement, and attachment.

For all those taking a summer break - enjoy!

Judith Martinez

Director of the National Center for School Engagement

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The Bully-Victim Relationship: What We've Learned So Far

By Marty Tombari, Ph.D.

Senior Research Analyst

and

Laurie Bennett

Research Assistant

Under a three-year grant from the U.S. Justice Department's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), NCSE is studying the linkages between bullying and in-school and out-of-school adjustment outcomes, such as truancy, dropping out, suspensions, expulsions, and delinquency. We are in the first year of the grant, in the midst of a review of the extensive research literature studying the bully-victim relationship. Below is a brief summary of some of what we have learned so far.

What is the nature of the bully-victim relationship?

Researchers agree that the essential features of a bully-victim relationship include: An intentional aggressive harmful act that is repeated a number of times and is part of a relationship characterized by an imbalance of power between the bully and the victim.

How many children are involved in bully-victim relationships?

Estimates of the extent of bully-victim relationships in school settings vary depending on whether you ask the bullies or the victims to report about their experiences, or whether you ask others (teachers, parents, peers) to identify who the bullies and the victims are.

• Self-reports suggest that about 25% of school children are part of the bully-victim relationship.

• Peer-reports suggest about 10-15%.

What are some of the psychological/behavioral consequences of being part of a bully-victim relationship?

The psychological and behavioral consequences for the victims involved in this relationship appear to be more damaging than are those for the bullies.

• Although some of the early bully studies showed that bullies experience low self-esteem, depression and loneliness, more recent studies suggest that the psychological profiles of bullies are relatively benign.
• Victims are at risk for low self-esteem, low school engagement, school avoidance, lower school achievement, learned helplessness, and depression.

What makes it likely that a child will become part of a bully-victim relationship?

Some early bully-victim relationship research focused on identifying family factors and personality characteristics of bullies and victims, which put them at risk for being a bully or a victim. More recent research has focused on aspects of the school and classroom environment that increase the likelihood of children becoming bullies and victims. Some of the findings from this research are:

• Children who come to kindergarten lonely, withdrawn, or aggressive may be rejected by their classmates.
• Some rejected children become targets of bullies and experience negative outcomes like abuse and exclusion.
• Not all lonely, withdrawn or aggressive children become victims or bullies in early elementary school.
• The quality and nature of their first and subsequent peer experiences are principally responsible for later peer maltreatment.

Can children who are part of the bully-victim relationship ever break out of it?

A significant number of children are engaged in this kind of relationship. Whether they break out of it may depend on whether...

• Victims develop other friendships
• Victims acquire certain behavioral and psychological coping strategies
• School personnel intervene
• Both bullies and victims change where they go to school and with whom they associate at school.

Can changes in school climate eliminate the bully-victim relationship?

Evidence is slowly accumulating that schools can reduce substantially the frequency of bully-victim relationships. There are several evidence-based programs available to schools that, if implemented properly, reduce incidences of bullying in both the short and long-term.

What needs further study?

Some studies suggest that factors occurring after a child has been victimized may have a significant impact on that child's subsequent school achievement, engagement, and/or adjustment. Such factors may include:

• Classroom participation

• Attribution (to what or whom does the child attribute responsibility for his/her victimization?)

• Relationships with teachers

We believe that this area merits further study as a possibly fertile field for future interventions leading to more positive outcomes for children for whom bully-victim relationships have been a problem.

By Judith Martinez
NCSE Director

and

Gretchen Erickson
Research Associate

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Web-based Professional Development Project: Now recruiting local teams of educational leaders/teachers and community members to improve academic achievement for highly mobile/homeless students. Project begins in August 2006.

What is Web-Based Professional Development (WBPD)?

The WBPD project is an on-line educational forum uniting teams of three members around a school/community impacted by issues of homeless and highly mobile students. These teams typically consist of a school administrator, a teacher and a community member. Together they work within the web-based national network to study and build new educational practices geared toward achieving positive outcomes for these students. During the 2005-2006 school year, a cohort of twelve communities from four states are accessing modules of learning and community forums through the NCSE web environment. To learn more about WBPD, visit the NCSE website.

How do I sign-up for this special opportunity?

If you are interested in participating in the WBPD project, please apply by June 15, 2006. Click here for an application. For more information, click here or call 1-888-272-0454, ext. 105.

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Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance
The Catalog is a government-wide compendium of Federal programs, projects, services, and activities that contains financial and non-financial assistance programs administered by departments and establishments of the Federal government. The Catalog can be searched by Federal agency, functional area, eligibility, application deadline, type of assistance, and other criteria.

Grants.gov
Grants.gov is a single comprehensive website that contains information about finding and applying for all Federal grant programs. The website contains information about more than 800 available grant programs involving all 26 federal grant-making agencies. The website provides information in a standardized format across the agencies and includes the Federal Grant Opportunities feature to help applicants find grants.

Compassion Capital Fund Communities Empowering Youth Program
Applications are due by July 10, 2006
Award Amount: Up to 100 awards totaling $30,000,000.
Contact: Rafael Elizalde at (800) 281-9519 or click here.
The Administration for Children and Families (ACF)/Office of Community Services (OCS), announces that applications will be accepted for the Compassion Capital Fund Communities Empowering Youth Program. ACF will award funds to build the organizational capacity of experienced organizations and their partnering faith-based and community organizations to better meet the needs of America's disadvantaged youth. Capacity building activities are designed to increase an organization's sustainability and effectiveness, enhance its ability to provide social services, develop and/or diversify its funding sources, and create effective collaborations to better serve those most in need.

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Research on School Bullying and Victimization: What Have We Learned and Where Do We Go From Here? School Psychology Review, 32(3), 365-383

This research by Espelage & Swearer (2003) is included in a special issue on bullying and victimization in School Psychology Review. It highlights current research efforts in American schools on bullying and peer victimization, and how this research can inform prevention and intervention planning. The introductory article provides a brief overview of several major insights gained over the last decade from research on bullying in school-aged youth and sets the stage for the special issue. Research on psychosocial correlates in bullying behaviors is reviewed and four insights that provide directions for future research are derived. The contributing authors in this special issue augment these insights by:

• Examining the influence of the peer ecology on bullying (Rodkin, P.C. & Hodges, E.V.E. (2003). Bullies and victims in the peer ecology: Four questions for school service providers and social development research. School Psychology Review, 32(3), 384-400)
  

• Using longitudinal and multivariate methodologies in bullying research (Long J.D. & Pellegrini, A.D. (2003). Studying change in dominance and bullying with linear mixed models. School Psychology Review, 32(3), 401-417)
  

• Assessing the climates within the school where bullying typically occurs (Leff, SS., Power, T.J., Costigan, T.E. & Manz, P.H. (2003). School-based aggression prevention programs for young children: Current status and implications for violence prevention. School Psychology Review, 32(3), 418-430) Exploring implementation issues of school-wide bullying prevention programming (Orpinas, P., Horne, A.M. & Staniszewski, D. (2003). School bullying: Changing the problem by changing the school. School Psychology Review, 32(3), 431-444)
  

• Reviewing laws and policies to address bullying (Limber, S.P., & Small, M.A. (2003). Laws and Policies to address bullying in U.S. schools. School Psychology Review, 32(3), 445-455)
  

• Challenging researchers to reach a consensus on bullying research (Furlong, M.J., Morrison, G.M., & Greif, J.L. (2003). Reaching an American consensus: Reactions to the special issue on school bullying. School Psychology Review, 32(3), 456-470).
  Visit the publisher's website for School Psychology Review to order a copy of the journal.

The following online resources provide a sample of informational resources about bullying and youth violence prevention.

The Colorado Trust

A funder of an $8 million Bullying Prevention Initiative that will help schools and community-based organizations prevent bullying and bullying-related behaviors in 32 counties across Colorado. The Colorado Foundation for Families & Children is the metro Denver regional coordinating agency for the Colorado Trust's Bullying Prevention Initiative. For additional bullying prevention resources click here.

Bullying Online

Bullying advice for parents and students, including a comprehensive list of links to related website.

Bullying.org

Presentations and other tips and tools for learning, sharing and helping to prevent bullying.

Collaborative for Academic, Social & Emotional Learning

Research-based information about social and emotional learning (SEL) and bullying prevention.

Education World
Bullying intervention strategies for teachers, youth and students.

National Training and Technical Assistance Center
Information about bullying-related issues and school assistance in selecting and implementing effective prevention strategies.

National Youth Violence Prevention Resource Center
In-depth facts and statistics about teen bullying.

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National AfterSchool Association National Conference
Proposals for presentations are now being accepted.
Dates: March 21-23, 2007
Location: Phoenix, AZ.
Proposals submitted by June 1 will receive a decision by September 1 and those submitted by September 15 will receive a decision by December 1. All proposals must be submitted electronically and the information must be complete to be considered. For More Information: contact NAA Conference Team, or click Proposal Coversheet and Process.

Annual International Association for Truancy and Dropout Prevention Conference
Location: Baltimore, Maryland
Dates: October 7-11, 2006
Erin Gruwell (The Freedom Writers Diary: How A Group Of Teens Used The Power Of The Pen To Wage A War Against Intolerance) will be the keynote speaker at the conference. Further information and registration for the conference will be available soon on the ATDP website.

Third Annual International Bullying Prevention Conference
Crowne Plaza Ravinia Hotel
Location: Atlanta, GA
Dates: November 1-4, 2006
This conference will feature keynotes by Wendy Craig, James Garbarino, and international experts in the field of bullying prevention and intervention. More highlights: 21+ workshops offered by leading practitioners, and opportunities to network with bullying prevention specialists and researchers.

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