Dr. Siobh?n O'Reilly:

Good morning, Chair. Thank you for inviting the DCU National Anti-Bullying Centre to attend this meeting of the Joint Committee on Education, Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science. I welcome the opportunity to represent my colleagues at the centre. We are very happy to continue to support the committee’s work on school bullying and mental health.

The National Anti-Bullying Centre is located in DCU’s institute of education and staff at the centre have been doing research and education on bullying for 26 years. The centre works closely with the Department of Education with which we have a service level agreement, as well as the Department of Justice and the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, with which we have research agreements. The centre also hosts the UNESCO chair on bullying and cyberbullying and the Irish Research Observatory on Cyberbullying, Cyberhate and Online Harassment.

In addition to our research activity, the centre delivers a number of educational resources, including FUSE, Ireland’s nationwide anti-bullying and online safety programme for primary and post-primary schools. With financial support from Meta, Rethink Ireland and the Department of Education, FUSE is offered free to all schools in Ireland and is proving highly successful in improving the self-efficacy of children and adolescents in tackling bullying and online safety issues.

With financial support from Meta, Rethink Ireland and the Department of Education, FUSE is offered free to all schools in Ireland and is proving highly successful in improving the self-efficacy of children and adolescents in tackling bullying and online safety issues.

Our opening statement represents the full cohort of over 50 scholars and educators working with the centre and builds on our two previous submissions, from November 2020 and March 2021, and our presentation to this committee in June 2021.

The first area we wanted to emphasise was the importance of schools as safe spaces, free from bullying, intimidation and harassment. From research and practice perspectives, our centre believes young people must feel safe to learn at their optimum level. A safe school is free from bullying, intimidation and harassment. Students and learners who feel safe at school tend to have better emotional health and are less likely to engage in risky behaviours. That sense of safety contributes to an overall feeling of connection. School connectedness is measured as feeling happy, safe, close to people and a part of school, and also as believing teachers treat students fairly.

A safe school is committed to a range of preventive measures and also prepared to intervene or respond, or both, when the space is experienced as unsafe. A multi-tiered system of support facilitates a systematic approach in a learner-centred manner. A safe learning environment, social emotional learning and being trauma informed are core preventative strategies that support self-regulation, empathy, self-esteem and caring relationships and that can support "the all" in the school setting. Specific or specialised strategies may be required to support "the some" or "the few" to ensure children and young people with more complex needs can be effectively supported and feel safe at school. Optimally, this would include a family or community-based element, or both.

Safe and connected schools are adequately supported to create and sustain a caring climate for all, which may require differentiated responses for the some and the few, based on the needs presenting. Various professional roles, including those involving adults from the wider community context of the school, can work collaboratively to ensure the school climate is one where children and young people feel safe and connected. School climate is one of the key protective factors with regard to bullying prevention. We are aware that the Minister is launching the new action plan on bullying in December. In this regard, it would be great to see the inclusion of a school climate survey as one of the actions to be implemented as part of that plan.

Let me turn to the impact on mental health if schools are not safe. Health is defined by the Department of Health as everyone achieving his or her potential to enjoy complete physical, mental and social well-being. As outlined in our 2020 and 2021 submissions, previous research has consistently shown that being involved in bullying as a target, as a child or young person displaying bullying behaviour or as a bystander at school can be associated with several mental health problems, including psychosomatic complaints, anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation. Issues of identity seem to continue to remain at the heart of much bullying behaviour. UNESCO research from 2019 showed that physical appearance and race were the most common reasons for a child being a target of bullying behaviour.

The Anti-Bullying Centre would like to build on the research and work it has done through the FUSE programme and examine the areas of special educational needs and children with autism. Very little research has been done on the prevalence of bullying based on autism in schools in Ireland, and very little international research has been done on effective preventive programmes for those with autism.

A whole education approach to school safety within a community-based context is another approach we would emphasise. This ensures that, in line with the Department's well-being guidelines, there is scope to work at both universal and targeted levels, depending on the complexity and endurance of need to support "the all", "the some" and "the few". We welcome the Minister's announcement on the piloting of specialist emotional counsellors in primary schools and the extension of that pilot to second level.

We emphasise the importance of school policy and initiatives to implement school policy in a whole education approach. We ask that schools be given the space to create safe spaces and to be supported in doing so in their context, drawing on the community-based resources around them.

Our recommendations are as follows: the implementation of a school climate survey as part of the action plan on bullying to be released in December; that research be carried out on the prevalence or common forms of bullying experienced by autistic students attending Irish schools, and that, subsequent to that research, specific guidelines be developed for those students; that the development and introduction of multidisciplinary teams in and around schools be considered; and that schools be supported in taking a whole education approach in policy, procedures and practice.