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Bullying, defined as the activity of repeated, aggressive behavior intended to hurt another individual, physically, mentally or emotionally, is widespread in schools throughout the world. Available data consistently indicates that bullying is common in a wide range of countries and affects a considerable number of children and adolescents (School Violence and Bullying, Global Status Report, Unesco, 2017). In the 2016 UNICEF U-Report/SRSG-VAC opinion poll to which 100,000 young people in 18 countries responded, two-thirds reported that they had been the victim of bullying. Modern technologies are still not recognized as an educational tool by psychologists and youth workers. They can be a powerful tool to present the youth with some new perspectives and ideas, mostly because they are media canals of the new generation, that are intrinsically interesting and attractive to young people and can provide users with an immersive experience that is hard to induce by traditional methods. It is shown that virtual reality (VR) is very effective in inducing the feeling of empathy – it helps users to live in to the situation more than when it is presented through conversation or through a traditional film. According to researchers at the University of Warwick, virtual reality games could help children to better understand the consequences of victimization and bullying at school and to empower them to counter bullying. Other advantage of VR technology when used in youth work is that it allows the introduction of “gaming” factor into the scenario to enhance motivation of the participants and to make the video material even more interactive and engaging. It can be used for training of various skills, including psychosocial: in the VR safe environment, young people can rehearse how to react to stop the bullying and be empowered in that way. This project is aimed at improving practices in youth work in the field of countering bullying, violence, segregation and discrimination amongst youth. This objective is achieved by development of an innovative approach of countering bullying amongst youth that is in line with the current development of modern technologies and that uses their potential. Through the project, we developed two intelectual outputs: O1: Comprehensive study of best anti-bullying practices in order to obtain overview of regional, national and European successful practices including procedures, methodologies and tools in countering bullying with the greatest focus on the use of modern technologies as a tool in youth work. The Study has been widely disseminated in order to be used by those stakeholders that work with youth in the field of countering bullying and discrimination, to provide them with services, design policies, action plans and programmes on EU level. Furthermore, Report has been used as a starting point for the development of new projects in the field of countering bullying. O2: Innovative tool for countering bullying, including VR videos, Workshop Curriculum and Training materials for youth workers, that enable youth workers’ high quality and more structured work in the field of countering bullying. An integral part of the workshop curriculum are innovative VR videos, developed through this project, aimed to induce empathy in young people for the bullying victims, helping them better understand the consequences bullying has on victims and empowering them to counter bullying in their environments. Target group of this project are youth workers from 4 participating countries who took part in producing previously described intelectual outputs, piloting them and disseminating them to the relevant stakeholders. 12 youth workers (3 per participating country) have taken part in a collaborative way in joint staff training during which the developed materials have been tested, revised and mutual agreement on its features has been made. The youth workers that participated in this training implemented national piloting of the materials afterward. This enabled them to use the developed materials in their everyday work and to improve their skills and competences when working with youth in area of countering bullying and discrimination. The expected impact of this project, among others, is in area of: awareness rising of the importance of quality work of youth workers in the field of countering bullying which leads to improvement in the social inclusion of bullying victims, raising awarenes in young people on the destructive consequences of bullying and empowerment of young people to counter bullying themselves. Urgent solutions to change the high rates of bullying are needed, and engaging, easily approachable and understandable immersive simulation with a fun in-built reward system to sustain attention is the first step in changing the students' perception of interpersonal relationships and consequences of bullying.
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