The kiva method and other school bullying prevention programs - school bullying

For decades, the fight against school bullying focused on punishing the perpetrator and protecting the victim. However, the statistics did not improve significantly. Why? Because they ignored the social context. In the early 2000s, Finland revolutionized the global approach with the KiVa method, demonstrating that the key is not the protagonists of the conflict, but the bystanders. In this article we analyze the most successful prevention programs and how to implement them in your school.

What is the KiVa Method?

KiVa is the acronym of "Kiusaamista Vastaan" (against school bullying). Developed by the University of Turku (Finland), it is based on changing group norms. Its premise is simple: bullying is a group phenomenon motivated by the pursuit of social status. If the group stops rewarding the bully with attention and laughter, bullying loses its function and stops.

The 3 Pillars of KiVa Prevention

The program does not act only when there is a problem; it works year-round at three levels:

• Universal Actions:Prevention for everyone: Specific lessons are taught (20 hours per year) where students learn to recognize bullying, practice empathy and do role-playing exercises to know what to do if they are witnesses. The goal is to create a culture of "no tolerance".
• Specific Actions:Targeted intervention: When a case is detected, a trained school team intervenes with a strict protocol. The aim is not to humiliate the aggressor, but to confront them with their behavior and seek a commitment to change, while providing visible support to the victim.
• Constant Monitoring:Real data: The school conducts periodic anonymous surveys of students to measure the school climate. This allows detecting "hot spots" and evaluating whether the measures are working.

Other Effective Prevention Models

In addition to KiVa, in our course we explore other methodologies that are yielding results in Spain and Latin America:

The TEI Program (Peer Tutoring)

It is a successful Spanish model. It is based on "emotional tutoring" between students of different ages.

How it works: Older students (e.g., 3rd year of ESO) become tutors for students who have just entered (1st year of ESO). If the younger student has a problem or feels afraid, they go to their older tutor, not the teacher. This breaks the code of silence, since it is easier to tell a peer than an adult.

The Brave Club

Based on the Dialogic Model of Conflict Prevention. It transforms the concept of "tattletale" into "brave".

The Key: Work is done to remove the appeal from the aggressor's profile (who is usually seen as strong or cool) and give it to the person who defends the victim. In class assemblies those who have protected a peer are publicly praised, creating a new model of social success based on solidarity.

Prevention Strategies in the Classroom

You don't need to import a complete Finnish method to start preventing today. Teachers can apply:

• Empathy Maps: Activities where students must describe how a character in a story who is being excluded feels.
• Well-being Mailbox: A physical or virtual box where students can leave anonymous notes alerting to concerning situations.
• Active Supervision in Playgrounds: Recess is the "ground zero" for bullying. Prevention means that teachers not only "be" in the playground, but observe dynamics, intervene in excluding games and spot lonely students.

Prevention is not a one-hour talk once a year. It is a climate, a culture and a structure that says loud and clear: "Here we take care of each other".