School violence is an unresolved situation that pupils have to face and try to manage somehow. For this purpose, they need help and guidance from teachers and school counsellors. Within the REVIS project (Responding to peer violence among children in schools and adjacent settings), Terre des hommes Romania team elaborated a Guide intended to support teachers who work with high school pupils, so that teenagers design, plan, produce and develop school violence prevention projects, under teachers’ guidance.
The Guide (”Children-led projects on school violence prevention”) is addressed to teachers and facilitators involved in the REVIS project and it applies to young people aged between 15 and 19 years. The guide includes a planning methodology for 6 workshops; by the end of these workshops, the pupils will have developed a violence prevention project in their schools. The activities will guide the pupils through the main stages of a community service project:
- investigation of the issue,
- identification of needs,
- defining the objectives,
- finding solutions
- planning the activities
- planning the necessary resources (budget).
The workshop plan includes expected results, necessary materials, description of 2-4 interactive activities, conceptual clarifications and additional resources. The proposed activities may be adapted according to available resources, experience, preferences of facilitators and pupils. The workshops have been designed based on the assumption that the pupils are familiar with school violence issue and its reasons (negative social and gender norms).
During the activities, with the help of facilitating teachers, the pupils will learn to draw the emotional safety map in their highschool, identify the forms of violence around them and, by applying the iceberg method, they will find the social norms that support and maintain the forms of violence in their school.
Under the teachers’ guidance, the children will decide on the change they want in their school, specifically the social norms they want to change, strengthen or initiate. Also, they will create an anonymous reporting instrument (the testimonials box) and will organise a safe space in school, where everybody is welcome and protected from aggression.
The Guide was made by Romanian sociologists within the REVIS project – Responding to peer violence among children in schools and adjacent settings.
The project is implemented by Terre des hommes Romania Foundation and is co-funded by “Rights, Equality and Citizenship” programme of the European Union (2014-2020).
