engleski

Staff Reports of Bullying and Intervention Strategies in Residential Care for Youth

This study assessed how residential care staff viewed the nature and prevalence of bullying in their facilities and what strategies they used for combating bullying. Staff reports on bullying are compared with residents' own self-reported prevalence of bullying and victimization collected in the same study ; and staff reports of reduction strategies are compared with evidence-based proposed policy solutions arising from prior research on residents' reports. One hundred and forty staff from 20 Croatian children's homes and correctional homes completed an anonymous questionnaire. The results revealed that the majority of staff believed that bullying was a serious problem in their facility. However, staff estimates of the prevalence of bullying and victimization were significantly lower than resident reports. Staff were better aware of the prevalence of certain types of bullying, but they held stereotypical views of bullies and victims and had difficulties in recognizing the true times and places of bullying. Staff described their current efforts in combating bullying as being predominantly reactive and intuitive, rather than proactive and evidence-based. Staff also suggested that more punitive situational strategies were needed to improve current anti-bullying strategies. It is concluded that more effort needs to be made in order to change the current antibullying policies used by staff, which seem to be intuitive rather than evidence-based.

staff reports ; self reports ; bullying ; residential care

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