About SSA: SSA In The News

Engaging Youth to Reduce School Violence, Mistreatment

October 14, 2006
Letter to the Editor
by Rick Phillips

On Tuesday, President Bush convened a National Summit on School Violence. Having worked since 2001 with more than 30 schools in Sonoma County to empower students to intervene among their peers in hopes of reducing violence and cruelty, I was glad to see national attention being devoted to this critical issue. What is most important now, however, are the actions that our schools and communities take in the wake of the recent and recurring violence in schools. The incidents in Wisconsin, Colorado, Missouri and Pennsylvania are all examples of "visible mistreatment": violent events or harmful behaviors that adults actually see.

However, visible incidents make up a very small percentage of the broad spectrum of mistreatment and cruelty that are part of the daily lives of students in Santa Rosa, Sonoma County and throughout our country. Mistreatment can also include exclusion, gossip and rumors, put-downs, intimidation, emotional bullying and unwanted physical contact.

The more visible incidents are often the result of a build up of pain and rage that comes from repeated mistreatment and cruelty. It is, therefore, imperative that we work to reduce all forms of mistreatment on campus.

In the past, schools have disproportionately focused on school safety from the "outside-in:" installing locks, fences, metal detectors and security cameras, largely ignoring the role students can play in reducing incidents of mistreatment. But adults can't reduce peer mistreatment on their own, and security and rules are not enough to address the vast range of incidents and types of peer mistreatment.

Improving school climate requires an "inside-out" approach: adults partnering with students, putting them at the center of the solution.

Why students? Students see, hear and know things adults don't. Adults may miss as much as 95 percent of the mistreatment and cruelty, not because they don't care, but because the majority of incidents happen away from adult supervision - before and after school, on the bus, on the playground, in the hallways, in the restrooms.

One important point raised in the summit was that youth are often aware of potential incidents but do not tell an adult. Why? Reporting a peer to an adult conflicts with the "code of silence" that permeates youth culture. Students don't want to be seen as "narcs" or snitches by "telling on" their peers.

In order to break the "code," we need to move students from the position of consumer to contributor. Students need to be engaged and empowered with a sense of responsibility toward their peers and school community. In order to speak up, they need to know that their input and actions are valued and matter.

Many schools in Sonoma County have recognized the important role that students can play by implementing the Safe School Ambassadors (SSA) program.

The SSA program identifies "natural leaders" and equips them with communication and intervention skills in a two-day training. It reinforces those skills in follow-up meetings. The program empowers these students to take actions with their peers to prevent and stop mistreatment as it happens, or to mitigate its effects if they couldn't prevent it, before the problems escalate to the point of requiring adult involvement.

Through their interventions, ambassadors reduce incidents of mistreatment, shift campus norms, break the code of silence and build safer schools from the inside-out. Students become social change agents who influence their peers and shift the prevailing attitude from "it's cool to be cruel" to "it's cool to be kind."

At the end of the School Violence Summit, no additional federal money was allocated to the problem and no new policies were put in place. This is extremely disappointing, because in many cases, funding to support programs like SSA has been cut. Facing budget shortfalls, schools increasingly rely on support from our local communities or are forced to cut much-needed student-centered programs.

If you would like to learn more about how the Safe School Ambassadors program can increase school safety in your schools, contact Community Matters or visit www.safeschoolambassadors.org.