Implementing the KiVa Bullying Prevention Programme in the UK: Outcomes and Lessons Learned from the First 100+ Schools

KiVa is a Finnish anti-bullying programme, developed at Turku University. It is based on robust research by the programme developer, Christina Salmivalli, that shows how the responses of bystanders maintain or decrease bullying behaviour. It’s development and evaluation were funded by the Finnish Government. It has shown strong results in terms of reductions in child reported bullying and victimisation both in the large randomised controlled trial with 30,00 children, and subsequent wide scale roll out to over 90% of Finnish comprehensive schools. Similar results have recently been obtained in an RCT in Italy. The programme has universal actions, at both class and school level, and indicated actions that address confirmed cases of bullying.

In 2013 following a successful pilot trial in Wales and training in Finland, the Centre at Bangor University was licensed to disseminate the programme across the UK. Since 2013 100+ primary schools have been trained and have delivered, or are in their first year of delivering, KiVa to their Key Stage 2 pupils (ages 7–11 years).

After a brief introduction to the programme, the paper presents baseline rates of child reported victimisation and bullying in the UK, and analyses them in relation to school size, rurality, and level of socioeconomic disadvantage (as assessed by level of free school meals). It also reports baseline rates for bullying and victimisation by age and sex for children across the age range 7–11 years (100+ schools/10,000+ pupils).

Baseline and follow-up child survey data, are presented for: all school that have implemented KiVa for one year (76 schools/7,548 pupils), all schools that have implemented KiVa for two years (25 schools/3016 children), and all schools that have implemented KiVa for three years (7 schools/912 children).

The impact of KiVa after one year of implementation on school attendance and pupil achievement of expected levels on the core subject indicator, comprising attainment in first language (English or Welsh), mathematics and science will be presented.

Differences between continuing and non-continuing schools are reported and the paper discusses the UK implementation strategy in terms of challenges for implementers and schools, lessons learned in the dissemination so far, how the dissemination process has been modified to support schools and future dissemination plans.