KiVa Antibullying Program
Effectiveness

Promising

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Promising

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Life periods served
Where the program was applied
Country of application
Description

This is a school bullying prevention program for students in the second to sixth grades of elementary school.
The program has two focuses:
1) Indicated actions: in each school, a team of three teachers, together with the classroom teacher, deals with each witnessed or reported case of bullying. The cases are dealt with through a series of individual and small group discussions with victims and aggressors, as well as systematic follow-up meetings.
2) Universal outreach actions: includes 20 hours of lessons for students (10 double lessons) taught by teachers during the school year.
The central objectives of the lessons are: to raise awareness about the role that the group plays in maintaining bullying, to increase empathy towards victims, and to promote strategies to support victims. The lessons include discussion, group work, roleplaying exercises, and short films on the subject.

Impact evaluations

An impact evaluation showed that the program led to a reduction in anxiety symptoms, harassment, and victims of violence. The study had a pre- and post-intervention randomized experimental design with a sample of 2,042 4th- and 6th-grade students from 13 schools [1].

Bibliographic reference

[1] Nocentini, A. & Menesini, E. (2016). Kiva Anti-Bullying Program in Italy: Evidence of Effectiveness in a Randomized Control Trial. Prevention Science: The Official Journal of the Society for Prevention Research, 17(8), 1012–1023. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11121-016-0690-z