In an effort to prevent bullying and the suicide often associated with it, the RCMP have partnered with researchers at the University of Victoria and other groups in a pilot program.
Last week, six RCMP officers from across the country received training in understanding and preventing bullying in elementary school children through the WITS program.
WITS stands for Walk Away, Ignore, Talk It Out, and Seek Help—all skills that help young children deal with bullying.
The trained RCMP officers will play a central role in assisting school staff, parents, and community leaders in taking a unified approach to reducing bullying in their communities.
After an initial visit to introduce the WITS program to students, the officers will visit schools periodically throughout the year and ask the kids for examples of how they “used their wits,” says Dorian Brown, executive director of the Rock Solid Foundation, a non-profit crime-prevention group based in Victoria.
The officers will also lead other initiatives, such as teaching the kids a WITS song or reading one of the WITS books with them.
“The school itself takes on the program as well,” says Brown. “There’s lesson plans to go with all the books. The schools are being given all the books. It’s a literacy-based program and the school takes on the language. They use the books and the lesson plans that go with the books to reinforce the strategy.”
Funded by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, the partnership links the RCMP’s National Youth Officers Program with PREVNet, a national network of Canadian researchers and youth-serving organizations, UVic researchers, and the Rock Solid Foundation.
According to Rock Solid’s website, WITS is the only anti-bullying program that extends beyond the classroom to involve families and communities. It aims to create communities that are responsive to the prevention of peer victimization and bullying.
Created in 1993 by the principal at Lampson Street Elementary School in Esquimalt, B.C., WITS was broadened and developed into a program with the help of school police liaison Cpl. Tom Woods, founder of the Rock Solid Foundation.
It was a community-based approach, with teachers and school counsellors providing input. UVic psychology professor Dr. Bonnie Leadbeater and her research team got involved in 1998 and contributed to the development, implementation, and evaluation of the program.
WITS was piloted in 2005 in School District 61 and made widely available in 2006. It has since spread to more than 150 schools across Canada and the United States
‘Good Creds’
Leadbeater’s studies have shown the WITS Program to be effective in lowering victimization rates.
“It’s been studied twice now in two three-year studies, and it’s being studied yet a third time right now in various places across Canada. And each one of those very expensive studies has proven that it reduces peer aggression, so it’s got some good creds behind it—it’s proven effective,” says Brown.
She adds that Rock Solid’s role in the partnership is to raise funds for program resources for the schools.
“Schools are so financially challenged, and our studies have shown that while all schools benefit from the WITS program it’s the inner-city schools—the ones with the least amount of money—that benefit the most. So to have a cost factor is just ridiculous since the ones who need the program the most are the least likely to be able to afford it.
“So that’s why we do our best to try and raise money so that the schools don’t have to. If they need the program it’s available for them. ”
One of Rock Solid’s famous successes is the Trackside Art Gallery—the world’s largest outdoor youth art gallery—created in 2002 out of a former crime corridor along the railway on the Esquimalt/Vic West border in Victoria.
Formerly a waste dump where violence repeatedly occurred, the Trackside Art Gallery is lit in the evenings to aid in crime prevention.
The gallery currently hosts 47 pieces of art from artists of a range of ages in four categories: Young At Art, Youth Artists, Emerging Artists, and Mentoring Artists. The latter includes professional artists such as renowned wildlife painter Robert Bateman, Ted Harrison, Art Vickers, and Kerry Newman.
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