Schools Against Victimisation from an Early age – (SAVE) SAVE is a European Project coordinated by the Faculty of Psychology of the University of Barcelona. More specifically, by the Research Group in Childhood and Youth Victimisation (GReVIA). SAVE’s main aim is to develop the competences that school staff members need in order to support and protect children and adolescent victims of violence. The ultimate project's objective is for this group of vulnerable students to be able to perform successfully at school, not only in academic terms but also regarding interpersonal relationships and behaviour, and to grow over their traumatic experiences. In order to achieve this, SAVE will use innovation and the exchange of good practices among four European countries. We will work with AUGEO’s Foundation (The Netherlands), ICEP Europe (Ireland), the University of Padua (Italy), the Empowering Children Foundation (Poland) and University of Barcelona (Spain) to create an online platform where five training modules for school staff members will be available. This material will address different types of child and adolescent victimisation: bullying and cyberbullying, child emotional and physical maltreatment, child sexual abuse, and trauma due to war conflicts. We will also include a module to develop resilience and post-traumatic growth. The training will be available in several languages for free and will be tested by school staff to ensure it meets their needs. Users of the training will be able to: - Manage inadequate behaviours from students that may be going through hard or traumatic experiences. - Prevent violence against children and youth through educational activities and materials. - Develop techniques to tackle sensitive issues and provide with effective support for students. - Acquire strategies to involve families. - Know the steps and procedure that need to be followed when reporting a child or adolescent at risk. - Promote resilience, post-traumatic growth and healthy coping strategies to overcome distress. We expect this project to fill the gap between the school staff members’ needs and the absence of efficient tools. SAVE expects to increase the feeling of safety at school, which will help challenged students to deal with their emotional distress in healthy ways. We also expect to increase detection and reporting of children and adolescents at risk in order to provide them with support as soon as possible, preventing chronic violence. This will be done through the joint efforts of different stakeholders (i.e., students, school personnel, families, NGOs, professional experts) involved in child and youth protection.
The Schools Against Victimisation from an Early age (SAVE) Programme (https://saveprogramme.eu/ ) is a European project lead by the Faculty of Psychology of the University of Barcelona, specifically, by the Research Group on Child and Adolescent Victimization (GReVIA). SAVE's main goal has been to develop the skills of educational staff in order to support and protect children and adolescents victims of violence. The ultimate aim has been for this vulnerable group to be able to achieve academic content and social integration in school, despite their situation, with the help and support of school staff. To do so, SAVE partnership has designed an online training program for school staff across Europe, based on the use of innovation and the exchange of good practices between countries. The course has been designed by a multidisciplinary partnership formed by professors, educators, researchers and psychologists from Italy, Ireland, Poland, and Spain. It is composed of four modules that can be taken at the user’s pace. The modules address sexual victimisation, physical and emotional maltreatment, bullying and cyberbullying, and how to promote resilience (https://www.savetraining.eu/courses/ ). They are completely free, available in several languages, and have been evaluated by school workers and adults that have been victims of violence during their childhood in order to ensure that they are adapted to the needs of the public. (A full pre-print of this study can be found here: https://psyarxiv.com/sj6xr/) Each module addresses the following contents: - Management of inappropriate behaviors of children who may be going through a difficult or potentially traumatic situation. - Proposals to prevent child violence. - Development of techniques to detect children potentially at risk, address sensitive issues and provide effective support to students. - Knowledge of the process required to report a child at risk. - Promotion of resilience procedures. Also, SAVE includes a list of Open Educational Resources for each participating region, such as videos of SAVE presentations and research, specialised associations to contact locally for different types of victimization, the legal framework, and links to useful material, like movies, books, etc. SAVE also extends a certificate upon the completion of the training. It should be noted that SAVE has helped educational professionals to identify changes that they can make in their daily work in order to increase detection, report and prevention of victimisation. School staff also reported feeling more prepared to deal with disclosures as they are provided with tools to promote resilience and healthy coping strategies to help their students to overcome distress in the everyday school scenario. The impact that SAVE has achieved is the recognition by educational professionals in Ireland, Italy, Poland, and Spain as a very interesting and useful program that addresses a real problem in the daily reality encountered about child victimization, which can be identified and reported from schools and victims. According to the latest metrics (May 2021), the course has been visited a total of 41'34 times in its different versions (around 60% of visits for the Polish version, 24% for the Catalan one, 10% for the Spanish one, 4% for the Italian one and 2% for the English version, see annex: "SAVE Website_ Metrics"). The course received visits not only from European countries participating in the project but also from other European countries (e.g., Over 300 from the Netherlands, more than 200 from Germany and around a hundred from Finland) and even beyond the European region (e.g., around 200 visits from United States, Mexico, India or Chile respectively, see annex: "SAVE Website_ Metrics"). The project has been widely disseminated in different regional, national, and international events, such as web, social networks (e.g. posts on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/posts/anamgreco_savetraining-schoolsagainstvictimisation-activity-6786374670393331712-esjW), events or conferences (e.g., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkH4agmFcJ8&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=AnaMartinaGreco), scientific and popular articles (e.g. https://www.educaciontrespuntocero.com/cursos-online/cursos-victimizacion-infantil/) and TV3 News participation (https://www.ccma.cat/tv3/alacarta/telenoticies/els-mestres-podran-detectar-victimes-dabusos-sexuals-gracies-al-save/video/6095620/). Images, texts, and advertising videos have been created about the SAVE project as dissemination tools (Annex: "Dissemination tool_ Spain_ 1-11; Ireland_1"). Likewise, there have been collaborations with influencers from the educational school world and experts in the field of child victimisation investigation (Annex: "Dissemination tool_ Spain_ 9-10"). For further information see Annexes ("Dissemination_ Others_ Poland 1; Italy_1"). The participation and the reports obtained in the dissemination phase have indicated a high and successful work. In sum, this project has improved the gap between the school staff members’ needs and the absence of efficient tools to deal with the emotional distress of the students in healthy ways.