Engage Students to Embrace Civility

Engage Students to Embrace Civility provides schools leaders and mental health professionals with guidance to fully engage students to maintain positive relationships and effectively respond when hurtful behavior occurs, either school environment or elsewhere, including online.

This includes the objectives of reducing the instances of such hurtful behavior, supporting targeted students in responding effectively when treated badly, increasing positive peer interventions by students who witness hurtful incidents, and influencing students who are hurtful to stop and remedy the harm. Civility means being kind and respectful, even if you disagree.

The key components addressed in this book include:

• Fully engage and empower students in efforts to maintain positive relationships and respond effectively when hurtful incidents occur.
• Focus on "embracing civility," rather than "anti-bullying."
• Collaboratively build a school climate that will foster positive relationships-rather than relying on adult control "rules and punishment" approaches.
• Focus on reducing all forms of hurtful behavior, not solely on what is called "bullying."
• Empower targeted students by supporting them to build their underlying self-confidence and social skills to reduce the likelihood of their being treated badly, effectively respond, and limit emotional harm by through support and a focus on their future.
• Address the concerns of the students who are the greatest source of hurtful behavior-the popular, "leadership" students who are hurtful to achieve dominance and social status-whose hurtful acts are frequently not recognized.
• Ensure appropriate policies and practices to prevent staff maltreatment of students, knowing that when staff consistently model kindness and respect for all students, hurtful behavior of students can be significantly reduced.
• Empower a diverse group of students who are consistently kind and inclusive, who step in to help, and who have a natural drive for leadership to function as a student leadership team encouraging civility, positive relationships, and positive peer intervention.
• Emphasize positive social norms that the majority of students do not like to see their peers be hurtful to others and strongly admire those who are kind and respectful, step in to help when they witness hurtful incidents, respond to being treated badly in a positive manner, and stop themselves and say they are sorry if they were hurtful.
• Reduce impulsive retaliation by supporting students in gaining increased self-regulation and personal power, knowing that others can change, having effective problem solving skills, and having positive connections with supportive peers and adults.
• Engage students who have been hurtful in a diversionary restorative process that leads to acceptance of personal responsibility, efforts to remedy the harm, and a commitment not to engage in further hurtful acts.
• Provide intensive trauma and resilience informed support for students who are persistently targeted, and those who have suffered adversities, are treated badly at school, and who are also hurtful.
• Increase positive peer intervention of witnesses by empowering students to step in to help, be supportive of those who are treated badly, encourage those who were hurtful to stop and remedy the harm, and report serious or unresolved situations to an adult who can help.
• Support staff in gaining the skills to effectively intervene when they witness hurtful incidents.
• Implement a diversionary restorative approach in more serious, persistent, or pervasive hurtful situations that holds those who are hurtful accountable, supports and empowers those who are treated badly, addresses any school environment concerns that are contributing to the situation, and monitors to ensure things have gotten better for all involved students.