How Can We Stop the Next Generation of Bullies and Victims?

Bullying isn’t just something we grow out of—Victoria University of Wellington Professor Vanessa Green argues that bullying spans a lifetime, and occurs in many different contexts.

Join Vanessa for an outline on what makes bullying a community issue and what needs to be done to address New Zealand’s very high levels of bullying.

The recognized definition of bullying is: it is a harmful act towards another, there is a power imbalance and it is repeated. This last point is particularly relevant because regardless of whether bullying is repeatedly targeted at one person, or is one person targeting a number of others, it is damaging yet another generation of New Zealanders and it is helping to fuel our appalling statistics for youth suicide, domestic violence and child abuse.

She suggests that there is a need for a socio-ecological approach to bullying to be able to understand its complexity and appreciate that it’s a community issue that needs a community response.

Vanessa will reference the KiVa Bullying Prevention NZ programme, including its principle that it takes a bystander in a bullying situation to help to defend someone from others. Vanessa will argue that despite people growing and adapting, our core values do not change over time, so to address bullying behaviour it requires both adults and children being educated on how to stop it, and how to intervene.

Bio: Professor Vanessa Green
PhD, MEd (QUT), PGDip (Psyc) USQ, BSS Waik
School of Education, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.

Vanessa Green received her PhD in Developmental Psychology from the School of Early Childhood, Queensland University of Technology, Australia in 1999. Since then she has held academic appointments at The University of Texas at Austin, USA and the University of Tasmania, Australia.

Professor Green has publications in the areas of children’s social development and developmental disabilities. She is a registered psychologist and the Director of the Master of Educational Psychology programme at VUW.