Professor Judy Hutchings, from CEBEI at Bangor University, along with a multi-centre research team has co-led the largest randomised controlled trial of the KiVa anti-bullying programme in the World to date. Funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) the researchers investigated the effectiveness and costs of the KiVa anti-bullying programme in UK primary schools.
Supporting Children’s social and emotional wellbeing in Schools
Childhood bullying is a public health priority, with research (Bowes et al., 2015) indicating links with mental health difficulties including depression, anxiety and self-harm, and bullying. A 2024 survey, has indicated that bullying, as experienced by school children is at its highest level for a decade.
Ensuring that we address bullying in a way that is known to be effective for the pupils involved, is a top priority for the Children’s Early Intervention Trust (CEIT). A long standing collaboration with the Children’s Evidence Based Early Intervention (CEBEI) research centre at Bangor University has enabled multiple research projects to be undertaken that demonstrate and support Finish findings for the KiVa anti-bullying programme; that it is effective in reducing instances of bullying amongst school children.
Stand Together – A multi-centre cluster, randomised control trial
Stand Together looked at the effects and costs of the KiVa anti-bullying programme in UK Primary schools. Between 2019 and 2021, 118 primary schools with 11,111 pupils were recruited across four trial sites in the UK; North Wales, South West and South East England and the Midlands. Data (questionnaires) were collected before and after the one year KiVa programme was delivered to 5,321 pupils. In the second, concurrent control arm of the trial, the same data was collected from 4,660 pupils who continued with their normal practice.
Information about the questionnaires used and more detail about the trial is on the Stand Together webpages.
What is the KiVa anti-bullying programme?
The KiVa anti-bullying programme addresses the social architecture of bullying, enlisting and empowering bystanders whilst coaching pupils in social and emotional literacy, promoting inclusion, acceptance of diversity and kindness, that help prevent bullying happening in the first place. Clear definitions of bullying make understanding what is bullying (and what is not) easy for pupils and staff. Whilst standardised and effective intervention strategies that engage both bully and bully-victim, give schools clear guidelines on how to deal with incidents of bullying.
The Children’s Early Intervention Trust (CEIT) brought the Finnish programme KiVa to the UK in 2012 and as the KiVa UK hub, has been delivering training and support for the programme ever since. You can watch a presentation by Dr Williams, about the history of KiVa from our 2024 conference.
The most important message that I think KiVa has sent to all schools, is not to bully and to be kind to everyone. And even if you’ve got problems, it doesn’t mean that you should put your problems onto somebody else, and make them more, maybe self-conscious of themselves.
A school pupil
‘The children are more aware of each others’ needs and feelings and they’re able to show empathy for each other that they didn’t have before, which was really good’.
A school staff member
Stand Together trial findings
Exploratory findings indicate that the effectiveness of the KiVa programme may be consistent across different demographic groups, including those from more socio-economically deprived settings and by gender. This suggests that the programme may have the potential to benefit students from diverse backgrounds and is not limited to specific subgroups – an important finding when schools are looking to ensure equitable access to effective anti-bullying programmes. Read more.
Trial results are expected to be published in early November 2024.
‘Respect yourself and respect others ….. no-one deserves to be bullied’