The Problem

The context of the present paper is to discuss the negative effect of bullying on the mental health of school children, especially primary school students, before delving deep into the mental health aspect of bullying on the student’s mental health condition. It causes psychological harm to the recipient. There are different types of bullying experienced by children, including physical, verbal, and social bullying. Such behaviours can cause distress among the students who are experiencing the behaviour regularly. Bullying has affected the mental health of children for generations. It has been only recently that the mental health effects of bullying have been studied at length. Bullying does not only affect the victim but also those who witness the bullying behaviour and the bullies themselves. Bullying is a behaviour characterized by a deliberate misuse of power, which both physical and verbal use can execute. The other types of bullying experienced by children include physical bullying, verbal bullying and social bullying. Physical bullying includes being kicked or pushed to hunt the student or damage the property deliberately in the school premises by other students, (ncab.org.au, 2022). The paper also discusses the various theories which explain bullying behaviour and the mental health effect of the students who suffer bullying, and the chosen intervention for the problem. 

The organization that has asked for the support of middle school children who are suffering from poor mental health effects due to bullying is The Department for Education (DfE). The department is responsible for providing service to children catering to the needs of education policy and apprenticeships. The ministry supports it. Seventeen agencies and different public bodies support it. Thus while discussing the problem of bullying and mental health effects of the primary school students, the role of The Department for Education (DfE) is important.  Bullying also affects students’ academic performances, but the paper will discuss the effect on mental health. The organization is trying to cope with the bullying effects and trying hard to control and avoid bullying. According to the organization, the schools must have a behaviour policy to prevent bullying among students.  The inclusion criteria of the policy can be decided by the schools, (www.gov.uk, 2022). The school students mainly face bullying, including repeated harassment and threats via abusive calls or texts. Cyberbullying is also another source of bullying that middle school students often face. Bullying can also result from discrimination, and thus discrimination needs to be avoided by all means.  

The Department for Education’s Role

The development area chosen for the paper will include the effect of bullying on students’ mental health. Bullying affects the mental health of primary school students. Bullying behaviour is often detected as a serious problem. Bullying affects the victims, the bystander audience and the students who are involved in the act of bullying others. The behaviour of bullying affects all of them for a long time. Many youths often face direct or indirect consequences of bullying. Bullying makes the victims feel insecure. They might also suffer from depression and feel phobic to go to school anymore. The emotional effects of bullying can be represented in terms of somatic disturbances. Witnessing peer victimization or the victim himself also suffers from sleep disturbances due to the bullying behaviour being meted out to them. It can be stated that the level of stress hormones gets enhanced in the victim out of fear. The psychological problems that they face include anxiety and depression. Depression caused due to bullying has a stronger effect as it causes a wider range of symptoms, including long-term behavioural health issues.  Psychological outcomes are very strong with students who suffer from victimization over the years in school. Bullying at school has a significant effect on the later psychological adjustment, physical health and educational attainment, (Fink et al., 2018). 

 According to research, primary schools students or adolescents have scored high on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. They suffer from higher levels of depression and anxiety. They show a higher rate of self-harm due to their childhood experience of depression. They show suicidal ideation at a higher rate. There has been a strong relationship between the first nation Australian adolescent population and negative mental health conditions due to peers’ bullying, (Ford et al., 2017). The mental health effects of bullying include self-harm and suicidal ideation feature proves that schools need to give importance to policy development to protect students from being bullied or discriminated against. The schools need to take responsibility for taking care of every student they have and provide them protection against bullying. Self-harm is the second largest burden of diseases and thus the second leading cause of death among the adolescent population in Australia, such as the effect of bullying on the adolescent population. In the recent past, bullying among school-aged children has been identified as a major public health problem, (Zaborskis et al., 2018). It is evident from research findings that cyberbullying is the highest source of depleting mental health for both boys and girls. Girls face higher mental trauma by facing sexual cyberbullying, (Baier et al., 2019).  

The Effect of Bullying on Mental Health

School bullying has become a common phenomenon worldwide, and various theories have explained this aspect. Understanding the concepts of bullying and the detrimental effect on mental health to prevent bullying from taking place, including the effective understanding of the theories of bullying. 

The social cognitive theory states that children learn bullying by observing others. Aggression is learned through observation. As an effect of being bullied at an early age, one learns how to inflict similar pain on others through observation. The other theory that can explain the cause of bullying includes the Dominance Theory of Bullying. People often dominate others and bully them into gaining superior status in society, thereby endangering the status of the weaker section of the school community. According to humiliation theory, weaker students and thus cannot fight back the bullies, suffer from humiliation and low self-esteem. According to the organizational culture theory, bullying creates an unsafe atmosphere for the students who face bullying for a long period, (Subedi, 2020).

Mental health services need to be embedded in every school setting to create a continuum and develop integrated care to prevent and deal with students who suffer bullying and deteriorating mental health due to bullying. Creating a safe, educational space for the students in every school is important. Effective counselling sessions need to be provided to the students who suffer from depression or anxiety due to bullying, (Kelly et al., 2020). Students who face bullying due to their inability to fight back suffer from insecurity. They execute flight responses when presented with a fearful situation. The school’s interventions should include strategic planning to provide them with a safe and secure environment where they can share their concern without much concern, (Reisen et al., 2019).  Tailoring detailed therapy plans can be initiated to deal with the negative effects of bullying as explained by the humiliation theories of bullying like low-self esteem. Cognitive-behavioural therapy is an effective method of psychotherapy to promote the functioning of the students. The therapy might promote the rebuilding of self-esteem among the students who lack self-esteem. Effective coping strategies need to be taught to the students to deal with their aggression and anxiety as described by the negative impacts of bullying by the various theories of bullying, (Rajabi et al., 2017).

There are various strengths of using CBT and various coping strategies to deal with the negative effect of bullying. CBT is a well-established treatment for depression and anxiety among adolescent or primary-section students. CBT is beneficial as it will use affective, cognitive and behavioural techniques to treat depression and suicidal ideations in students. CBT suggests that depression and stress from peer victimization and bullying put youths towards depression. They start having negative views about themselves and get engaged in self-doubt. These factors are targeted to be treated by the CBT technique. Other benefits of CBT and coping strategies include improved communication skills among adolescents, (Metzger et al., 2021). CBT and coping strategies can benefit students towards fear. CBT is effective in reducing depression and effective in reducing suicidality, (Hutson et al., 2021).  CBT can be used to make the students feel that their emotions are manageable. Due to bullying, students might feel so depressed that they might withdraw themselves from society. CBT can help them manage or regulate their emotions and face their daily lives. CBT will help them manage their less accurate thoughts and replace them with more rational ones, thereby avoiding suicidal ideation (mylifepsychologists.com.au, 2022).

Theories Explaining Bullying Behavior

There might be various drawbacks of CBT and coping strategies while dealing with and treating the negative mental health of adolescent students due to bullying. The preschool students might not find it suitable to experience the structured nature of the CBT technique.  During the technique, one might experience the negative emotions they had faced while experiencing bullying experiences in their initial stage. They feel emotionally uncomfortable to face the emotions and memories of bullying that they might have been facing regularly. Adolescents experiencing regular intervention sessions might also face cultural barriers while experiencing sessions. They or the caregivers might fail to realize the usefulness of the intervention sessions for the students to deal with their negative emotional experiences resulting from bullying. Effective involvement of every caregiver might not be present to promote effective intervention to the students, (Halder & Mahato, 2019).  Adolescents might not be able to attend regular intervention sessions since they fear being judged by peers for taking professional care for their failing mental health. The extra work they need to perform between their studies and social life as a part of attending the intervention sessions might prove to be stressful for them, (www.nhs.uk, 2022). 

The interventions can prove effective when the interventions can improve the emotional regulations. Research has suggested that bullying interventions have proven effective in school based-bullying in school. It suggests that bullying at an early age can develop in the child aggressive behaviour, depression and social anxiety among the students as they grow. It also, according to sources, leads to undesirable life outcomes. Thus, strategic interventions are needed to improve the students’ mental health. The research has shown interventions like creating a safe, educational space is effective in developing a safe space for those students who suffer from low-self esteem and fear due to prolonged experience of being bullied. Recent analysis has proved that anti-bullying programs effectively reduce the bullying perpetrators in school-based bullying behaviour. Thus, while providing interactions that promote protection to the students, CBT and other coping strategies will prove to be effective when the interventions help the students lead an effective life with effective coping strategies to regulate their negative emotions and constant fear. Thus the organization needs to take up a proposed solution of giving the schools the responsibility to create an aunty-bullying atmosphere where every student feels safe to study or to complain if they are being bullied without the fear of being harassed all the more for complaining, (Gaffney, Farrington & Ttofi, 2019). Depression and anxiety have been measured before and after the intervention of CBT. It was concluded that the interventions could effectively reduce the bullying experiences, anxiety and depression among preschoolers or adolescents. The interventions have also proved to reduce the distress related to being bullied. Since the interventions designed were for the preschoolers, and the reach has proved to be effective in reducing the negative emotional state, it can be justified that the intervention can be stated to be effective in dealing with the negative mental health effect of the students, (Muslim & Karneli, 2019). Thus, it can be justified that the organization takes up the proposed solution to protect young minds from the detrimental effect of bullying. Coping strategies, which includes emotion-focused coping, effective communication with parents and teachers and problem-focused interventions, can also be effective in treating the negative mental health effect of the child as the interventions can prove to be useful as with the help of social support, the victims to deal with their negative self-perception and thus can be justified to be effective if undertaken by the organization, (Giménez-Gualdo et al., 2018).

The Solution

References:

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