Professor Paul Downes:

I might pick up on the Deputy's point about the work of Dr. Stephen Minton and the example in Mayo she gave. At the time, that was pioneering research. The notion of community-based bullying research is underdeveloped internationally. It is certainly hugely important but it has not been given the policy focus or the focus in the international research community that it deserves. You could extend it. How can we create community spaces for well-being and co-operation and to undo conflict between different ethnic groups? How do you create these spaces for co-operation? That speaks to the new national children's strategy. How do we create those spaces? We need to rethink how we do this. We have a focus on playgrounds for very young children but where are the spaces for later primary-school children to play and co-operate in? Where are the spaces for early and older secondary school students to do the same? We need a spatial strategy that includes the community level. Covid has also accelerated a focus on issues like access to nature. This would include spaces for well-being where conflict can be overcome through co-operation. At a school-based level, this includes things like school gardens. It is a very simple space. The Educational Disadvantage Centre studies show the impact of school gardens on the well-being, co-operation skills and social and emotional development of children and young people. Again, it is about how we create our spaces in our school system that foster co-operation and collaboration. The first stage would be to develop the social and emotional competences of our young people. In one way, bullying is a failure of communication on the part of our young people because they have not been given the spaces to communicate and collaborate in.