Across America, schools are seeking solutions for how to deal with the growing problem of aggression on campus. From bullying to more violent acts like school shootings, the need for training programs, policies, and procedures couldn’t be more prevelant. While some school districts take a piece-meal approach, many are seeking a comprehensive solution that gets results quickly.
Over the last few years, I’ve gathered with some of the smartest people that I know to talk further about school safety, education reform, and curriculum that teaches practical peacemaking strategies. Along the way, World Peace Ambassador Dr. Clyde Rivers challenged me to create an initiative that could unite my efforts with like-minded individuals that wanted to help in facilitating growth in schools. In doing so, we truly saw the need for social and emotional learning programs and resilience education in educational institutions. Schools that were following the traditional anti-bullying methodology were failing miserably, with many seeing an increase in incidents on campus and online.
Thanks to the excellent research put out by groups like CASEL (the Collaborative for Academic Social and Emotional Learning), we know how to help children succeed. They clearly show that a child who is healthy socially (interactions with others) and emotionally (has the ability to regulate emotions) is more likely to succeed in every area of life. On another note, resilience education is proving to be the answer to the question of how to respond to social aggression in schools. In fact the pendulum in the education industry is swinging away from the traditional anti-bullying strategies, used since Columbine in 1999.
This past spring, I had the pleasure of launching the Campus Peace-Building Initiative. CPBI shares the Peace Sign Approach, a psychological approach to social aggression that empowers targets with social and emotional coping skills. In addition, the Pathway to Peace Framework supports schools in developing people, programs, policies, and processes that reduce aggression and promote peace on-campus.
It is a sincere joy to be able to share the strategies and approach that myself and our partners have used to help thousands of schools across America. My team and I have become collaborating with other professionals to produce additional resources to help educators, parents, students, and mental health professionals in this endeavor to promote peace on-campus. I look forward to sharing them with you.
If you would like to learn more about how we might partner with your district, please email Jim Scott, Communications Director, at team@jeffveley.com.