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ABC: Anti Bullying Certification

The ABC (Anti-Bullying Certification) project aims to develop a certification process to support schools in developing an effective antibullying policy, which includes sensitive attention to more general social inclusion and to 21th Century conflict solving skills among both students and school staff. The certification procedure is not just a “check” of written antibullying procedures but also contains a social analysis and needs assessment, integration of ongoing goal setting and planning, staff and student training and a guide pointing to effective measures to structurally enhance the school learning and working climate. A key aspect of all this is how students and teachers deal with conflicts and whether the school functions as a model of non-violent problem solving skills and methods which are lodged in role-modelling democracy. The main aim of the certification process is not to prescribe best practices to the school but to enhance ownership and making own choices in an appropriate school policy.

News

News about the project was given through the websites of partners and the EAN website. You can register for the EAN newsletter by mailing eansecretariat@antibullying.eu. The registration form for the GALE external newsletter LGBT Education can be done here.
There was a special newsletter made by students. You can subscribe to the Antibullying Students Newsletter here, but currently no new issues appear.

European strategy

The project has 11 partners, the European Antibullying Network (EAN) and 6 NGOs in Greece, Italy, Spain, the UK and the Netherlands; each working with one or two schools in their own country. The project partners start the project by elaborating a draft certification proposal, which has been developed by Centro Montesca and reviewed in the European Anti-Bullying Network, into a testable toolkit.
The project will develop four tools to help schools make a high quality self-assessment: a description of the procedure, surveys for students and teachers, training and visitations for students and teachers and a toolkit with suggestions for high impact follow-up interventions.
In each country and on the European level, a feedback committee will be formed to organize expert feedback on the draft instruments. The experts on the feedback committees will be asked for comments on first drafts of the instruments and on the semi-final instruments after they have been tested in schools. The instruments will be ready in May 2020.

In the schools

In the schools, filling in the surveys is the first step of the certification process. In the schools, the second step is to analyze the assessment results and decide about necessary measures. Then the implementation follows during one school year. A staff training is a key element in any strategy. Another key element of successful antibullying strategies is organizing “golden weeks” at the start of the school year, during which student get to know each other, built social group process and agree about rules for pro-social behavior. At the end of the school year, the impact of the pro-social/antibullying strategies is evaluated.
The project ends six months later. This gives the schools the opportunity to organize the “golden weeks” in an improved way. It gives the other partners the opportunity to review the certification procedure, the training and the manual on effective measures, to translate, publish and disseminate them. This is done during multiplier meetings in the participating countries and in Brussels.

Read more:

Products

  1. Manual for the Certification Procedure (English). Read also: Dutch version, Italian version, Spanish version, Greek version
  2. School Safety Surveys for Students and teachers (English). Read also: Dutch version, Italian version, Spanish version, Greek version staff survey, Greek version student survey
  3. School Review Workshops for students and staff (English). Read also: - Dutch version, Italian version, Spanish version, Greek version
  4. Powerpoint Presentation for the teacher workshop (English). Read also: Dutch version, Italian version, Spanish version, Greek version
  5. Intervention Toolkit Manual (English). Read also: -Dutch version, Italian version, Spanish version, Greek version
  6. Intervention Toolkit Database (English, Excel).
  7. A model for a franchise system (English)
  8. Manual for training consultants (English)
  9. Consultant training presentation (English, PowerPoint presentation)

After the project period, the European Anti-Bullying Network (EAN) will sustain the certification strategy by stimulating her members to implement the procedure (at a cost-covering rate) in their own countries. EAN will also periodically update the procedure, the toolkit and the EAN certification training. To cover these European level costs, EAN will register the "EAN Certification Procedure" as a trademark and incorporate the costs for quality maintenance in the European certification training.

The Gaynergy-label: GALE has developed an updated version of the ABC certification procdedure, which also has more elaborate attention to sexual and gender diversity. This version is called the "Gaynergy-label". Here is the Dutch version of the Gaynergy-label. We are working on the Eglish version.

European mainstreaming

The project also aims to stimulate the introduction of national and European mechanisms to set quality guidelines for antibullying policies in schools. The national and European feedback committees will have a central role in this. While discussing the concrete instruments for certification, the project will stimulate also a discussion about if there are possibilities to set quality guidelines in countries and on the European level for antibullying policies in schools.

Partnership

The Anti Bullying Certification project has partners from 5 countries: Greece (Smile of the Child), Italy (Fondazione Hallgarten Franchetti - Villa Montesca and CESIE), The Netherlands (GALE - The Global Alliance for LGBT Education), Spain (Asociación Cívica de Comunicación y Educación “Sophia” - ACCESO) and the UK (Merseyside Expanding Horizons). GALE is the lead partner. If you are interested to apply for a position in one of the national or in the European Feedback Committees, please contact one of the partners or info@gale.info.

Lessons on antibullying policy

At the end of the project, we offered 4 lessons on antibullying policy and online discussion. You can still use these lessons!

Communication

The project communicates in different ways.

Newsletters for teachers

Newsletters for students

Students can join the mailing list for the Students Newsletter. Actually, anyone can register for this newsletter.

Social media

Internal (closed) groups

  • Involved teachers can join the interactive mailing list antibullying-teachers-list@gale.info. (For non-participants: don't mail this address, it refuses mails from addresses that are not on the list)
  • Involved adults also communicate in a closed Facebook exchange group.

Videos

News items

2018

2019

2020

This project is co-financed by the European Erasmus+ KA2 program. The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.