• 
  • About SFMC
  • Experiential Adventure Model
  • Newsletter
  • Our Board Members
  • Jobs at SFMC
  • Testimonials
• 
  • Youth Development Services
  • TAP Therapeutic Adventure Program
  • Emergence Program
  • NM GSA Network
  • Adventures in a Caring Community: An Anti-Bullying Initiative
  • Adult Health Services
  • Adventure Out
  • Courage to Risk
  • Harm Reduction
  • Private Programs
  • Leadership Development
  • Private Contracted Programs
• 
  • Contact Information
  • Staff List
  • Directions to SFMC
  • Jobs at SFMC
• 
  • Support SFMC
  • Business/Corporate Sponsorship
• 
  • Photo Gallery
  • Video
• 
• 
• 

For more information about our program design, curriculum, or evaluation and research, please contact:

Jenn Jevertson
Therapeutic Adventure Program Manager
(505) 983-6158 x 13
jenn@santafemc.org

Adventures in a Caring Community: An Anti-Bullying Initiative

The Bullying Problem

In the average elementary school classroom, two to three students spend their day afraid they will be humiliated or picked on by students who bully. The United States Department of Justice and the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) estimate that 160,000 children miss school each day because of fear (Lee, 1993).

A study conducted by Hoover, Oliver, and Hazler (1992) revealed that 80% of school students reported having been bullied in school. Bonds and Stoker (2000) offer this analysis:

The consequences of bullying are serious. We can no longer dismiss it as innocent teasing or harmless play. Victims of bullying report both physical and emotional symptoms, and demonstrate an inability to focus on schoolwork as well as lowered school attendance...When students are asked to describe how they have been affected by school bullying, they report such symptoms as nervousness, worrying, scared feelings in the stomach, headaches, and tiredness (Rigby, 1998). All of these complaints directly interfere with a student's ability to learn effectively. Tragically, in the most extreme cases, bullying has been named as the cause of both child suicide and homicide, as victims desperately search for a way to end the turmoil.

Five years ago, SFMC created the Adventures in a Caring Community at a local Santa Fe elementary school in response to this pressing need. Our curriculum was developed by combining elements of SFMC's Experiential Adventure Based Resiliency Model and current anti-bullying theory and research. The result is an action-based, holistic approach to helping young people create a more caring and compassionate classroom and community. Our strengths-based resiliency curriculum focuses on the internal assets of positive values, social competencies, and positive identity development as core components.

Since then, we have developed and expanded our project into a very successful model with 280 children at two elementary schools in Santa Fe. We used a mixed method, quasi-experimental research design to measure students' self-reported internal assets, including goals and aspirations, problem solving, empathy, and self efficacy. The results have shown that our program is successful: we have increased the resiliency of students by enhancing their internal and external assets as well as their self-efficacy. Additionally, our program has positive effect on reducing bullying behaviors in program classrooms.

Program Design

The overall program goal of Adventures in a Caring Community is to create a more positive, caring, and safe learning environment for all students at an identified elementary school. All activities are designed to promote participants' resiliency skills, reduce bullying behaviors, and create safer classroom environments. Specifically, we aim to accomplish the following outcomes:

1. Classrooms are safer and more productive learning environments.
2. Students possess skills and strategies to deal with being the target of bullying behavior.
3. Students possess skills, strategies, and confidence to intervene appropriately in bullying situations.

Recent research shows that the majority of students are not involved in bullying situations, but are merely bystanders (Garrity et al., 2000). Our approach is based on the theory that this majority can be transformed into a "caring community." We believe that by creating an environment where students have increased empathy and caring for one another, students become more resilient and bullying behaviors are reduced.

Adventures in a Caring Community focuses on the entire 5th and 6th grade levels in an elementary school. As 5th graders, students participate in nine two-hour experiential school-based sessions and three full day ropes course programs at SFMC site locations on life skills training, anti-bullying and violence prevention. These sessions focus on practicing the skills necessary to support healthy peer relationships, creating a caring community, and increasing resiliency skills. As 6th graders, all students attend another full day ropes course program to reinforce and support the resiliency skills and caring community concepts that were focused on during 5th grade. Using a youth-driven model, an elected Peer Mentor Group of approximately 12 to 16 6th grade students meets throughout the school year and chooses activities and service learning projects on how to make the entire school more of a caring community.

The following reflections are from Agua Fria Elementary 5th grade students:

• "What I have learned at the Santa Fe Mountain Center is a lot of things about no bullying behavior...Before, my class would be a little bit mean to each other, being bossy, a little bit of no sharing, no communicating, but now that the Mountain Center has visited us, we [now do those things], plus more. For example, cooperating, kindness, and no bullying. I think it is very important to treat each other with a lot of respect."
• "I've learned many things at the Mountain Center. The games that I've learned were Coyote and the Rabbit and Rock Climbing and many other games. The other thing I've learned about is bullying. I've learned not to be a bully and if someone is bothering me then I will go somewhere else. My class and I learned that there is no reason to fight. If you see a bully bothering someone, go and tell the bully to leave that person alone...if they do not listen to you then go and tell an adult. This is what I learned about bullying."
• "The Mountain Center has helped me a lot of different ways, and here are some. When the Mountain Center first started, I really didn't know what the program was for. But when my teacher started explaining it more I really got the concept. It's helping me by talking about bullying, because I don't like to get bullied on, and it's not nice to bully on someone else. Also, it's helping me on support and not to be bossy by using teamwork. But the main thing SFMC is helping me with is working will all my classmates. In my opinion, it's helping my class get along and improving our communication...This is why I enjoy the Mountain Center, and also because they have really fun games..."

The Future of Adventures in a Caring Community

We have high hopes for Adventures in a Caring Community. Not only have we developed a strong program design; it is one that has been shown to WORK. We hope to expand to more schools in Santa Fe and eventually replicate our program across the nation.

Our success is the result of hard work, support, and passion from the children we work with, our staff and board, the communities and schools we work in, and by the invaluable financial support of the foundations and private donors who make this important work possible. We currently have the financial support of Buckaroo Ball Foundation, the Fullwood Foundation, Sydney and Andrew Davis, the Santa Fe Realtors Association, the New Mexico Community Foundation, and the Children, Youth and Families Department.

In these trying economic times it is even more crucial to diversify and bolster our funding. Our annual project budget is $80,000 to continue providing 338 hours of service to the 280 children. In order to achieve our vision and continue to provide these critical services that positively affects children, WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT. $20,000 will pay for 28 programs (25% of the entire project); $10,000 will pay for 14 programs (13% of the project); and $5,000 will pay for 7 programs (6% of the project).

Won't you help us to break the cycle of bullying, victimization, and violence in our schools?

Note: SFMC's Adventures in a Caring Community is working in collaboration with the Santa Fe Public School District's Office of Student Wellness (SFPS OSW). This program is NOT the same as the BullyProofing Your Schools model; however, for continuity and to support the efforts of the SFPS OSW, our Initiative draws off of some of the same principles and research as BullyProofing for consistency for students. Further, this Initiative can supplement and/or serve as the participating schools' 5th grade teachers' efforts in implementing BullyProofing.