We create a world at peace where bullying dissolves by supporting youth in their social and emotional growth and development. We teach them to better navigate relationships and conflicts. To mitigate the effects of trauma we use restorative vs. punitive methods of addressing harm from bullying.
A Restorative Approach
At NVCnextgen we proactively approach bullying by focusing on prevention. We prepare youth with positive relationship and conflict resolution skills. Recognizing that it’s typically “hurt people” who hurt people, we work with schools, organizations, and the community at large to become informed regarding the effects of trauma. We invest in creating Trauma Informed Universal Precautions to address and mitigate these effects. When bullying does occur we apply restorative intervention and postvention strategies to break the pattern of violence.
Prevention
Our Akamai Relationships Skills course teaches youth the principles of Nonviolent Communication. We teach youth the skills they need to be empathic to their own universal human needs as well as the needs of others. We teach positive relationships where needs are met through healthy relational strategies rather than violence.
We also partner with the organization Sources of Strength to use the power of peer social networks and trained adult advisors to promote more healthy norms and culture. This empowers a community of strength to self monitor and root out the underlying needs and issues that could lead to bullying.
Intervention
When conflicts arise, we utilize the principles of Nonviolent Communication to resolve them. We help disputants address the unresolved universal human needs that underlie all conflicts. One way we do this is to employ and empower students to mediate conflicts using Peer Mediation to resolve the conflict and further teach Akamai relationship skills.
Postvention
Postvention is what we do if our attempts at prevention and intervention come too late, and bullying does occur. At this point, our approach needs to be restorative vs. punitive. Rather than looking to punish those who engage in bullying, we employ our methods of restorative justice to bring together not only victims and offenders, but also others in the community who are affected. By taking a community approach all stakeholders come together to heal and repair the harm done. This approach effectively supports both the one(s) who have behaved as a bully as well as those bullied to ensure that all needs are met, and relationships are restored.
In addition, we help build skills using a Collaborative and Proactive Solutions approach to identify any lagging skills for the youth and developing a plan to foster the development of positive proactive relationship skills.