Engaging Partners to Promote Relationships and Eliminate Violence

• In Event: 2-017 - Leveraging Community- and Practitioner-Research Partnerships to Advance Equity and Justice in Developmental Science

Integrative Statement

Bullying problems are universal – they transcend gender, economic, and cultural divisions (Napoletano et al., 2015). There are lifelong costs of failing to protect children from bullying and nurture them to develop positive relationships (Takizawa, Maughan, & Arsenault, 2014; Wolke et al., 2013). Through our observational and school-based research, we came to understand that bullying is not a school problem, but a societal problem. Therefore, efforts to prevent bullying and promote healthy relationships among children and youth need to extend beyond the school to all the places where they live, learn, play, and work. Canada has not fared well on the international stage in the prevalence of bullying and victimization, in part because we have not had a national strategy to address bullying problems (Molcho et al., 2009).

In 2006, we were funded by Canada’s Networks of Centres of Excellence research program to develop a national network of researchers and partners to collaborate on developing resources and strategies to prevent bullying. We called our network PREVNet – Promoting Relationships and Eliminating Violence Network, which described our basic tenet that the healthy development of children and youth depends on healthy relationships in the family, school, peer group, and community.

In this presentation, we will describe the evolution, mechanisms, and impact of PREVNet (Promoting Relationships and Eliminating Violence Network) in Canada. PREVNet has developed into a national network of over 130 researchers, 150 graduate students, and 62 partners (youth-serving organizations, governments, and corporations) working together to prevent bullying and promote healthy relationships for Canadian children and youth. Through PREVNet’s partnerships, we have been engaged in a societal intervention by co-creating over 150 tools and resources to enhance the practices of those involved in the lives of children and youth across the country. We have developed several mechanisms to drive our efforts to foster wide-scale social change including: four strategy pillars for knowledge mobilization (Education, Assessment, Prevention and Intervention, and Policy); a knowledge mobilization model based on co-creation; working groups to co-create tools and resources; as well as broad strategies to engage multiple sectors within the country to focus on these important issues related to child and youth wellbeing. Collective efforts across Canada have contributed to improvements in rates of bullying reported by Canadian youth on the World Health Organization’s Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children survey. There is, however, considerably more work to be done as too many children and youth continue to be involved in bullying.

Through PREVNet, we have been able to rise up collectively to the challenge of promoting healthy relationships for children and youth in order to prevent the development of bullying and violence. By enhancing moment-to-moment interactions and program delivery with children and youth, we have worked together toward a vision of a safe, secure, and equitable society that actively fosters and nurtures healthy relationships for the healthy development of all its children and youth.

Authors

• Joanne Cummings, Queen’s University
  Presenting Author

• Debra Pepler, York University
  Presenting Author

• Wendy Craig, Queen’s University
  Non-Presenting Author