Psychologist, bullying and mental health

Psychologist

My name is Luca Bianchi, I have a degree Psychology of the mental development and I am family psychotherapist.
My intervention as a school psychologist is to facilitate efficiency in achieving the educational goals of children, promoting well-being in the school context.

In this frame the most suitable and widespread methodology is the socio-affective education, aimed at strengthening and developing personal resources and acquiring social skills (Francescato and Putton 1995).

The functions of the school psychologist are:

• Promote the psycho-physical well-being of students and teachers;
• Promote students’ motivation to study and self-confidence;
• Build a quality moment and prevent mental discomfort and early school leaving;
• Promote the orientation process;
• Encourage cooperation between school and families;
• Create an opportunity to achieve equal educational opportunities.

The interventions proposed in the field of school psychology are:

• Psychological listening desk with individual interviews for children (listening desk), teachers (listening desk), and families. The listening desk is a space where different persons can express their experiences in total freedom; it is a space in which the counseling interview is proposed, that is a type of psychological intervention of short duration dedicated to people who do not have serious psychopathology situations.
• Individual and class observation, to gain greater awareness of behaviors, attitudes and beliefs of teachers and students and of the close interaction between the former and the latter.
• Establish the best methodologies and study choices in the school career.

Le convinzioni delle persone riguardo alle loro abilità hanno un grande effetto su quelle abilità.

(Albert Bandura)

CONSENT TO THE PROCESSING OF DATA

Bullying

ESVA Bullismo

I bambini non nascono bulli, ma viene insegnato loro ad esserlo.
Matt Bomer

Prevenzione, intervento e monitoraggio

KiVa is an innovative school-based antibullying program which has been developed using cutting-edge research on bullying and its mechanisms

KiVa is an evidence-based program to prevent bullying and to tackle the cases of bullying effectively. The former is crucial but also the latter is important, as no prevention efforts will make bullying disappear once and for all; there need to be tools to be utilized when a case of bullying comes to light. The third aspect of KiVa is constant monitoring of the situation in one’s school and the changes taking place over time; this is enabled by the online tools included in KiVa. These tools produce annual feedback for each school about their implementation of the program as well as the outcomes obtained.

The main components of KiVa

KiVa includes both universal and indicated actions. The universal actions, such as the KiVa curriculum (student lessons and online games), are directed at all students and focus mainly on preventing bullying. The indicated actions are to be used when a bullying case has emerged. They are targeted specifically to the children and adolescents who have been involved in bullying as perpetrators or victims, as well as to several classmates who are challenged to support the victim; the aim is to put an end to bullying.

KiVa is based on decades of research on bullying and its mechanisms

KiVa was developed at the University of Turku in Finland, with funding from the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture. Its developers are experts who have been studying the phenomenon of bullying and its mechanisms for decades. The team is led by PhD, Professor Christina Salmivalli and PhD, Special Researcher Elisa Poskiparta.

Strong evidence of effectiveness

There are numerous antibullying programs on the market but unfortunately, only few of them have been tested in rigorous scientific studies. This means that there is no evidence of whether or not the programs actually help in reducing bullying in schools.

The effects of the KiVa antibullying program have been evaluated in numerous studies. In addition to the studies based on the data collect­ed and analyzed by our KiVa research group, also independent data collected by National Institute for Health and Welfare indicates that bullying and victimization have decreased in Finland since the broad rollout of the KiVa program. KiVa is now being evaluated in several countries: the first international studies from the Netherlands, Estonia, Italy, and Wales are emerging, showing that KiVa is effective outside of Finland as well.

Secondary