Friendly Schools and Families
The Friendly Schools and Families research has been recognised nationally and internationally as a successful evidenced-based bullying prevention program. This program comprises whole-school (including family) learning and teaching strategies, resources and case studies from Australian schools. The comprehensive whole-school program, designed to maximise family involvement, has been found to significantly reduce bullying within the school setting.
The research
The Friendly Schools and Families program is based on six years of detailed scientific research involving over 6,000 school students, their parents and teachers. It is one of the few evidence-based programs that has been rigorously evaluated and found to improve young people’s social skills and to reduce bullying behaviour.
The history
In 1999, a formative research project aimed to develop and comprehensively evaluate a set of evidence-based Principles for Success and exemplar case studies, was formed to guide the development of a whole-school approach to reduce bullying. A four year intervention research project, Friendly Schools (FS), was then implemented in 29 randomly selected Perth metropolitan primary schools (2000-2003) to evaluate the best whole-school strategies to reducing bullying. Using the results from the FS Project, a second more targeted program which included a stronger focus on capacity building and involving families was developed. This three year research project called Friendly Schools Friendly Families (FSFF) involved 20 randomly selected primary schools (2002-2004).
The outcome
The Friendly Schools and Families program also addresses evidence suggesting that the development of resilience, positive self-esteem, empathy, co-operation, friendship skills, social skills and decision making, emotional management and conflict resolution can help protect people from the harmful effects of bullying, as well as help them build positive peer relationships.
The Friendly Schools and Families program has been clearly linked to Australian National Policy and the National Safe Schools Framework to support the Framework Implementation Plan.