Preventing School Violence

Preventing School Violence Tragic incidents in recent years have compelled schools and their communities to explore ways that they can prevent physical violence, teasing and name-calling, intimidation, and social exclusion. EDC has produced a variety of resources to improve education for students, families, and educators; address the issues that lead to violence; and provide resources and strategies to reduce violence and its impact.

Youth Violence Resource Center

The National Center for Mental Health Promotion and Youth Violence Prevention works with 115 Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration grantees in schools and communities to use evidence-based strategies for mental health promotion and violence prevention. Through training, online learning, site visits, and peer exchange, the center provides a variety of consultation in grantees’ efforts to serve diverse audiences.

Teen Dating Violence Prevention

The Love Is Not Abuse Curriculum is a step-by step guide to teaching high school students about the issue of dating violence. Using literature and poetry, this program provides teachers with the tools to teach about this sensitive subject and is intended to be taught in either Health or English/Language Arts classes.

Anti-Bullying Curricula

Voices Against Violence is a video that addresses the critical role that bystanders—both adults and youth—can play in preventing school violence. This video and accompanying materials encourage exploration of the dilemmas that bystanders face and effective ways to encourage and support bystanders to intervene in positive ways.

Aggressors, Victims, and Bystanders is a unit of EDC’s acclaimed Teenage Health Teaching Modules (THTM) that aims to change the roles students play in potentially violent situations. The backbone of the middle-grades module is the four-step Think-First Model of Conflict Resolution: first, keep cool; second, size up the situation; third, think it through; and fourth, do the right thing.

A team of EDC experts in health education and adolescent literacy worked together to produce the middle grades curriculum, Taking Action to Stop Bullying: A Literacy-Based Curriculum Module. Sponsored by the MetLife Foundation and aimed at 5th through 8th grade English language arts classrooms, the curriculum unites two streams of research and development at EDC—adolescent literacy programs aimed at building discourse-rich classrooms and skills-based health education.

Read a feature article about this curriculum

Dealing with Trauma

Co-sponsored by EDC, The Three R's to Dealing with Trauma in Schools: Readiness, Response, and Recovery explores issues related to trauma, its impact on children, and implications for schools and school personnel.

View this presentation online (requires RealPlayer, advance to the 10:44 minute mark)

School Health

Written for the World Health Organization (WHO) by staff from EDC’s Health and Human Development Programs, this document explains how violence affects the well being and learning potential of millions of children around the world, and provides interventions that can reduce violence through schools.

Download a copy of Violence Prevention: An Important Element of a Health-Promoting School (PDF, 291KB)

Counteracting Prejudice

Centered on the principles that violence and prejudice are learned behaviors that are preventable and that students can develop critical thinking skills to respond to and prevent hate crimes, EDC designed the Healing the Hate curriculum for middle schools and youth organizations. The curriculum includes interactive classroom exercises to provoke debate about issues and ideas, to illustrate the profound impact of hate crimes, and to help students develop skills to recognize and counteract prejudice through involvement at the school and community levels.

Download a copy of this curriculum (PDF, 1.7MB)

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