bullying interviewXYZ

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School

Grand Canyon University *

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O501

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Philosophy

Date

Apr 3, 2024

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docx

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1 Strategies Schools Use to Prevent Bullying and Violence Interview When it comes to high school in today’s day and age, bullying is a very prevalent topic that seems to affect every student one way or another. Because of this, each school district and each individual school tend to have their own policies and steps in place regarding bullying. For this assignment, my goal was to find out what the policies and steps regarding bullying are at a local high school that the students I work with will one day be attending. To find this information out I was lucky enough to interview the mental health counselor at my local high school whose name is XYZ. XYZ has been a counselor for over a decade and at my local high school for over 5 years now, so I figured she would have vital information that would be important to learn so that I would be able to apply it down the road in my own counseling programs one day. Counselor’s Role A counselor plays an important role in the prevention of bullying and violence within a school. This role can include many different facets and responsibilities. One of the most prevalent roles for the counselor in the case of bullying is making sure that any student being bullied is looked after and checked on, while making sure that steps are taken to stop the bullying and prevent it from happen more. Another role of the counselor is to offer support for the bullied student in the way of being there for them to open up to, to talk about the bullying, and confide any dark thoughts that have come to be as an effect of the bullying such as self-harm, violence, or even suicidal ideation. This is of upmost importance because bullying can be a big reason that students end up with mental health issues or self-harm issues and is one of the leading causes of suicide in teens. It also is typically one of the things that leads to violence in school and retaliation from the victim. Another important role of the counselor when it comes to bullying

2 and violence prevention is to ensure that the schools’ policies and procedures regarding these topics are being violent once they are brought to the attention of the school counselor. Procedures and Policies These procedures can be very specific and differ from district to district, and even school to school. Because of this, it is important for the counselor to know what their school’s policies are at any given time. At the school that Ms. XYZ is a mental health counselor at, they have both district wide policies and school specific policies that she has to follow. At the district level, this means keeping records of any reports of bullying, and using a district wide bullying assessment sheet to determine the severity of the bullying, including the effect it has had on the victim. XYZ explained that this sheet can be problematic at times because it means fitting a complex subject into a simple form and making a judgement call based off of it. She also explained this is hard because that judgement call can affect many lives, that of the bully and the victim as well. However, the form can work well because it keeps the responses the same across the board for the district and justification for the counselor’s decisions and next steps. After this form is completed, there is a series of steps that must be followed. This can end up being different at each school depending on the type of employees they have. At the school Ms. XYZ works at, she works at a mental health counselor, but not each high school in our district has this type of counselor. So, at her school, depending on the level of bullying that is assessed, a counselor would refer the student (both victim and/or bully) to her as the mental health counselor. Then, depending on the situation she would refer to administration or crisis team if needed. Another important part of the policies and such for bullying and violence is the prevention of these subjects. In the school Ms. XYZ works at, this includes having guest speakers come in to talk about the effects of bullying and speakers that have been affected by violence to speak as

3 well. These first-hand accounts of the harm bullying, and violence can cause can be very intense and serve as a good lesson for students. There also assemblies and videos shown to all the students that discuss the dangers of bullying and violence, and what to do if you are being affected by either whether at home or school. These assemblies and videos are usually led by the school’s student council. This works well because it has students talking to students and keeps it from being too formal and unmoving. Strengths and Improvements Needed A strength of this school’s bullying prevention program is that it is led by students so that other students can really relate to it and feel like it applies to him. However, I think there could be more counselor involvement to discuss the mental effects that bullying can have, and how it can tie into violence. Ms. XYZ and I discussed how often the violence we see on television within schools, the person causing the violence has a history of being an outcast or being bullied. Obviously there is more going on, and every child that is bullied will not turn to this type of violence, but it can happen. And having more facts about the effect of bullying on a student’s mental health within the prevention plan could be beneficial. Accountability Data Used It is also important that schools have accountability data in place in order to advocate for the use of a bullying and violence prevention program. At the local high school, they use accountability data from the state as a whole. This data is done through surveys of the state schools looking at things like students reporting bullying, what kinds of bullying are happening and what is causing majority of the bullying and so forth. Ms. XYZ explained to me that she does not know a lot about this process as it is done at a statewide and then district administration

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4 level, and a just a counselor she is just told the steps to take. Even though it was frustrating to not be able to find more information, it was also a nice lesson in how as a counselor, there are going to be many times that you have to simply follow policies and procedures without being given the why behind those decisions. Personal Philosophy These programs, procedures, or policies fit into fit into my personal school counselor philosophy. The fit in because it focuses on students helping students and making sure the effects of bullying and violence are known to students. Now the Bullying Assessment Form does not necessarily align with my own personal philosophy because I feel like it ignores the fact that each student is different, and every case should be handled as such and having required steps to be followed for similar cases that could have different effects is not necessarily effective in my mind. This includes not being able to meet the needs of diverse students as the bullying or violence could be more severe depending on their diversity, and it would therefor need to be handled differently. Conclusion In conclusion, there are some great policies and preventions in place for both violence and bullying in my local high school, but there is a lot more that they can be doing. The level of bullying at schools is at an all-time high and needs to be handled differently in this day and age than ever before because of things like social media and cell phones being readily available. Making these policy changes would be very valuable, but I understand how hard they could be to be implemented.

bullying interviewXYZ

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