Investigators: Jacinta Francis, Donna Cross, Erin Erceg, Gina Trapp, Natasha Pearce
Collaborators
Healthway
Department of Education WA
Department of Finance
Department of Health WA
Western Australia Catholic Education Office
Parry and Rosenthal Architects
Association of Independent Schools of Western Australia
WA Primary Principal’s Association
Peer bullying and aggression are key contributors to mental illness among children, contributing to loneliness, distress and poor academic performance. Approximately 1 in 6 students in Australia aged 7 to 17 years are bullied at least once a week, with victimisation peaking at age 10 and during periods of school transition.
Although a number of school-based prevention and intervention approaches to prevent bullying have been developed internationally, many of these cease to be effective after Year 9, with some programs inadvertently increasing bullying behaviour. New approaches to prevent bullying are therefore needed.
Studies exploring the impact of the school built environment on children's bullying behaviour and mental health are limited. The built environment includes all buildings, spaces and products that are created or modified by people. It encompasses fixed building and man-made greenspaces, as well as moveable items, such as seating, artworks, and recreational equipment.
The Building Out Bullying project is funded by Healthway and aims to generate policy-relevant evidence, system-level guidelines, and school-based interventions to improve the bullying behaviour and mental health of children attending primary and secondary school in Western Australia. The research findings will:
- provide critical knowledge about school policy, social and built environment determinants of bullying and mental health outcomes in students;
- inform state system and school-level policies influencing the design of school environments to reduce bullying behaviour and improve mental health;
- develop unique school audit tools for primary and secondary schools to objectively measure the built environment;
- develop school environment checklists for principals and school staff to make changes that impact bullying and mental health;
- inform capacity building and consultation workshops to further develop dissemination and translation strategies; and
- inform the revision of the Friendly School resources.