Bullying, Finland’s response ” “

KiVa is an anti-bullying programme, developed by Turku University in Finland, which is attracting international interest of researchers and stakeholders involved with the issue at various levels. A recent initiative in Turku was attended by experts from various European countries. The focus is on the guidelines and procedures related to the implementation of the program at national level. The effectiveness of KiVa – that in Finnish means “kind”, but it’s also an acronym of “kiusaamista vastaan”, “against bullying” – in Finland was tested nationwide. On the basis of the results, the government of Helsinki has invested on this program, adopted by 90% of Finnish schools. The program’s effectiveness is now being tested in the Netherlands (the pilot schools that have already carried it out registered a 50% decrease of the phenomenon), England and Wales, Greece, Luxembourg, Italy, Estonia, Japan and the United States. Identifying the causes. The program is the result of an effort launched in mid 1990s, when the Ministry of Education entrusted Christina Salmivalli, at the Psychology Department of the University of Turku, with the task of studying the causes of widespread bullying among youths, with the purpose of developing tools to tackle this phenomenon. “Bullying is a horizontal phenomenon, with various degrees of severity in all Countries”, Anna Laura Nocentini, researcher at the Psychology Department of the University of Florence, KiVa project trainer in Italy, told SIR. The latest survey carried out by the World Health Organization, “Health Behaviour of school-aged Children”, with figures concerning the years 2009/2010, highlighted that over 20% of all eleven-year-old youths have been victims of bullying in Estonia, Lithuania, French-speaking Belgium. The percentage falls under 20% in Austria, France, Portugal, Luxembourg, Poland, Slovakia, Finland, while in most European countries the victims are estimated at approximately 10%. “The problem is that there are Countries where intervention programs in schools are more developed and thus school policies focus on the prevention of bullying, while in other countries – such as Italy – such programs are lacking”, Nocentini said. Lessons and interactive games. The KiVa program follows two pathways. First of all, it proposes widespread action for prevention, addressed to all students implemented through ten lessons (“universal interventions”) aimed at boosting awareness on mutual respect and acknowledging bullying in its various shapes and forms, including cyber-bullying. A key aspect of bullying, according to the Salmivalli program, is the role of the “spectators”, in fact the group actively participates in the process. This is why the group is involved, in order to become aware of its spectator role and sympathize with the victim, to develop victim or self-defence strategies”. The ten lessons are backed up by an interactive online game for youths and by a guide for parents. Moreover, the KiVa program provides for targeted actions to tackle specific episodes of bullying (“identified interventions”) which consists in a set of interviews with the youths directly involved (victims and perpetrators alike, with diverse social and cultural profiles), carried out by a team of teachers trained on the subject, present in each school. “This is another strong point of the programme”, Nocentini said, because it brings together “preventive action along with interventions on the cases already identified”. Another positive aspect of KiVa resides in the fact that it can be easily implemented; the handbooks available for teachers are user-friendly. Now the point is to verify whether the program can be implemented also in cultural contexts that are different from the Finnish environments where the project has been developed. A European network. In the framework of the Daphne III programme the European Commission highlighted the protection of children victims of bullying at school as one of the priorities. A petition for the introduction of a European day against bullying and school violence, undersigned by 385 MPs asked also other Member States to “adopt appropriate measures” to prevent, protect children and train educators. The petition initiated a European campaign, financed by Daphne III and supported by 17 organizations from 12 different countries. In May Greece will be officially opened to the “European anti-bullying network”.