Bully Prevention Strategies for School Safety

Many districts focus on school safety solutions to support school culture and climate and reduce bullying. Research confirms the history of literature which connects SEL to making a difference in the above factors. The team looked at more than 400 universal SEL programs in the report. They concluded that SEL interventions support students’ abilities to thrive across six different domains:

  • Skill Acquisition: identifying emotions, goal setting, self-management, and conflict resolution
  • Attitudes: students’ feelings about themselves and the school
  • Social Engagement: engaging in prosocial behaviors like getting along with others, displaying empathy, and cooperation
  • Behavioral: reducing bullying, disruptive behavior, and discipline infractions
  • Emotional Regulation: overcoming emotional distress, stress, and social withdrawal
  • Academics: reaching reading and math goals

When bullying occurs, though, it can have a lasting impact on children’s mental well-being and academic success. Accordingly, districts that prioritize bully prevention strategies and SEL equip school communities to foster safer, more caring schools. While SEL isn’t a mental health intervention, it is a proactive approach to supporting students’ overall well-being and school safety measures.

How SEL Promotes School Safety

Many administrators and educators grapple with planning and executing interventions and curricula to support students. With a proactive, strength-based SEL approach, school communities focus on teaching social and emotional skills that students need to prevent bullying from happening in the first place.

Students with social and emotional skills can navigate social situations and build healthy relationships with their peers. It gives students who feel out of control with their emotions ways to cope, process their emotions, and ask for help when they need it. All of this promotes safer schools. Accordingly, students that feel supported and heard at school are less likely to act out or engage in bullying behavior.

Cultivating strong school communities and bullying reduction go hand-in-hand. Your district can leverage SEL to foster positive school culture by equipping students with the skills they need to ask their teachers for help, make responsible decisions, and maintain lasting friendships with their peers. 

Let’s Work Together to Create Safer Schools

When we integrate SEL, we promote happier, healthier school communities. You can learn more about our DESSA suite of assessments for students, which focuses on strength-based student skill acquisition, by contacting our SEL advisors!