Violence in schools is one of the most visible forms of violence against children. It can take many forms, ranging from physical violence to psychological violence which harm the general school climate and infringe pupils’ right to learn in a safe, nonthreatening environment. Violence has seen an increase over the years and still continues to grow.The phenomenon of school violence is present all over Europe.All the partner schools have pupils with aggressive behavior (pushing, shoving, name calling, verbal attacks-cursing, talking in class,biting, hurting other children), children less inclined to study with a low self-esteem and with trouble concentrating on their studies, and there are interethnic conflicts and tensions. DOVES-Detectives Of ViolencE in Schools is a cultural and social exchange programme involving students (10 to 17 years old), parents, teachers, from four different schools in Europe, from Romania, Poland, Greece, Estonia, the aim being to reduce violence in school. For these reasons we need to educate students (including those with behavioural disorders) and make them our partners in preventing and reducing the violent incidents in school; to train teachers (developing educators' psycho-pedagogical competences) and also to train parents to manage conflicts. The project's total duration is of 24 months ( September 1st 2017- August 1st 2019). The main objective of our project is to create a common strategy to reduce violence by 40 % in the partner schools by training teachers, children and parents via innovative methods. Another objective of the project is to do activities in each school: to improve knowledge about violence in school and society, making children and parents understand why conflicts happens;to present the positive and constructive part of the conflict and its effects;to make children, parents, teachers understand the interpersonal relationships as a whole with all with characteristics and benefits;to analyze and compare the causes and effects of violence in schools; to present best practice examples on how to prevent violence and on the ways to reduce the incidents of school violence;to encourage the learning of modern foreign languages. There are three main activities in each school: 1. Children being trained as peer-mediators.The first step is to select twenty children from each school (from Romania, Greece, Poland, Estonia) through a questionnaire that will show us their certain abilities that will qualify them to the second step; training. They will be trained by the schools psychologist and teachers as peer mediators. They will learn how to resolve conflicts without resorting to manipulation, coercion, or violence. In all classrooms posters showing the names and photos of the mediators are displayed and all pupils will quickly know and accept them. The conflicts will be finally resolved between the pupils themselves. The mediators will also teach, with the help of the teachers involved in the project, the other students and parents about: Violence in European countries, Violence in our country, Violence in our school,the role of the media, local authorities and the Internet, Prevention strategies, strategies of conflict resolution, efficient negotiation, identifying difficile personalities; 2. An anti-violence room. Children involved in the project with the help of teachers and/or psychologist will arrange a classroom where one can attend courses, workshops, film displays, exhibitions or other events, discuss with children-mediators or meet others interested in or dealing with school bullying, violence, racism, xenophobia, integration of students with special needs, discrimination of any type. Violent children will attend here the Origami/Art course or arrange the anti-violence room, theatre and drama show. 3. An anti-violence Guide. Children and teachers will write a useful guide which integrates good practices that focus on strategies of conflict resolution, prevention/elimination of violence in school (in RO, EN, Greek, Polish, Estonian). This will be an intellectual product of the project, that will serve other people and specialists that work and/or are interested in this field. The measurable benefits of the partnership activities are the learning of strategies to prevent violence, to reduce the conflicts of violence in classrooms, in schools. The participating children, parents and teachers will be able to communicate via e-mail in English about problems related to school violence, exchange historical, geographical, cultural information, improve the knowledge of the English language and also learn Greek, Romanian, Polish, Estonian(the basic skills). For each institution this exchange will have an immeasurable qualitative impact on the students, parents and teachers. The benefits of the project will be the improvement of the quality of school life and of the quality of life for each participant, through a new communication and travel experience.
Violence in schools is one of the most visible forms of violence against children.It can take many forms, ranging from physical violence to psychological violence, which harm the general school climate and infringe on pupils’right to learn in a safe, nonthreatening environment.Violence has seen an increase over the years and still continues to grow.The phenomenon of school violence is present all over Europe. All the partner schools have pupils with aggressive behavior,children with a low self-esteem and there are interethnic conflicts and tensions. DOVES-Detectives Of ViolencE in Schools is a cultural and social exchange programme which involved (from September1st 2017 to August31st 2019) students(10 to 17 years old), parents, children’s relatives, teachers, school psychologists, guests who participated in different project activities (police officers, doctors, mayors, representatives of School Inspectorates), stakeholders in conflict resolution, from Romania,Poland,Greece,Estonia.The main objective of our project was to reduce violence by 40% in the partner schools. The first step was to educate (train) students (including those with behavioral disorders) and make them our partners in preventing and reducing the violent incidents in school; then to train teachers and parents, with the help of children, via innovative methods (developing educators' psycho-pedagogical competences), to understand and manage conflicts.Another objective of the project was to do activities: to improve knowledge about violence making children and parents understand why conflicts happen;to present the positive and constructive part of the conflict and its effects;to present best practice examples on how to prevent violence and on the ways to reduce the incidents of school violence;to encourage the learning of modern foreign languages. There were three main activities in each school:1.Children being trained as peer-mediators.Twenty children from each partner school were selected through questionnaires, letters about bullying, essays, interviews, which showed us their certain abilities that qualified them to the second step: training.They were trained by the school psychologists and/or teachers to be peer mediators (15-40 hours of training course).They learnt how to resolve conflicts without resorting to manipulation, coercion or violence. In all classrooms posters showing the names and photos of the mediators were displayed and pupils quickly knew and accepted them. Students also made boxes where pupils anonymously reported incidents of violence in their school.The peer-mediators started to solve the other students'conflicts. 2.An anti-violence room. Children involved in the project, with the help of teachers and/or psychologist, arranged a classroom where violent/nonviolent children could attend courses, workshops, film displays, an Origami/Art Course or other events. They also discussed their problems with the peer-mediators or met stakeholders interested in or dealing with school bullying there. 3.An Antiviolence Guide. Children and teachers wrote a useful guide which integrates good practices (all our project work) that focus on our common strategy of conflict resolution, prevention of violence, activities done in each school in order to reduce violence.This intellectual product of the project will serve other people and specialists that work and/or are interested in this field.Peer mediators taught – with the help of the teachers involved in the project and the school psychologists-the other students from their schools and parents how to prevent violence, the ways to reduce the incidents of school violence (what the school, students, teachers, parents, police can do), and how to react to violence. The measurable benefits of the partnership activities are the learning of strategies to prevent violence, to reduce the conflicts of violence in classrooms/in schools, and to improve the quality of school life.Conflicts among students were resolved peacefully by the trained students. Another benefit was the development of parents’, children’s and educators' psycho-pedagogical competences to manage conflicts.The working language was English, which is not the native language of the participating countries.This helped pupils realize that it is necessary to learn modern languages.This realization is very important as it helped students increase their self-esteem.Children have built friendships across borders(they have developed the ability to be together with people who have another cultural background and to work together in a group).The school community agreed (during the various school meetings) that the implementation of the mediation program was a success(fewer incidents of aggressive behavior occurred): students learnt how to manage their anger and feelings, to accept diversity, etc.In all the schools involved, the process of training school mediators will continue for many years to come with the help of psychologists/teachers.