Title: The impact of Bounce Back on resilience, connectedness and wellbeing on children and teachers in Perth
1The impact of Bounce Back on resilience,
connectedness and wellbeing on children and
teachers in Perth Kinross Sarah Axford, Kirsty
Blyth Perth and Kinross Educational Psychology
Service
2Protective processes and resources that promote
resilience and wellbeing
- Environments
- School connectedness
- Peer connectedness
- Teacher connectedness
- Positive family-school links
- Family connectedness
- Caring adult outside family
- Community connectedness
- Religious involvement
- Personal skills and attitudes
- Helpful and positive thinking skills
- Resourcefulness and adaptivity
- Social skills
- Emotional literacy skills
- Sense of personal competence
3Bounce Back Aims
- To assist in creating positive, pro-social and
resilient classrooms and schools - To provide resources to enable staff to help
their pupils develop the skills of resilient
behaviour
4Bounce Back and Curriculum for Excellence
- Resilience is key for becoming a successful
learner, confident individual, responsible
citizen and effective contributor. - Helps schools create learning environments where
children are nurtured, safe, respected, achieving
and included and helps staff build positive
supportive relationships with children - Uses varied, active, cross-curricular,
cooperative approaches - Directly links to many HWB experiences and
outcomes , especially those relating to mental,
emotional and social wellbeing
5Bounce Back-Applying positive psychology in
education through 10 curriculum units
- 1. Core values
- honesty, fair, responsible
- Caring, kindness
- Acceptance of difference
- Respect
- Friendliness
- cooperation
- 2. Elasticity
- 3. People bouncing back
- BB acronym
- 4. Looking on Bright Side
- Optimistic thinking
- Positive tracking
- 5. Courage
- Everyday courage
- Appropriate risk taking
- 6 Relationships
- Making keeping friends
- Conflict resolution
- 7. Emotions
- Positive emotions (broaden build)
- Managing negative emotions
- empathy
- 8. Success
- Knowing strengths/limitations
- Goal setting, persevering, organising their work
- Meaning purpose
- 9. Anti-bullying
- Bystander support
- Peer pressure
- Assertive responding
- 10. Humour
- seeing the funny side
- shared laughter
6Evidence-base for School Wellbeing Initiatives
- Are preventative (whole school)
- Start early (early primary years)
- Combine 2 general strategies
- Focus on whole school climate change and
respectful supportive relationships - Teach social-emotional skills coping skills
- Coordinated multi-year (long term) programs
rather than short term - Delivered by teachers/embedded in curriculum
- Revisit key concepts, values skills every year
in age appropriate ways - Evidence-based psychological principles
(CBT/positive psychology) - Evidence-based teaching strategies
7Bounce Back in Perth and Kinross
- Jan 2008. Perth and Kinross Council agreed
support for introduction and evaluation of Bounce
Back - Sept 2008. Offer made to schools to sign up for
research project. 17 schools opted to take part - Sept 2008- June 2010. EPS carried out research
into impact of Bounce Back - Sept 2008- August 2010. Staff of 50 primary
schools provided with half day introductory
training in Bounce Back by EPS - June 2010. Visit of BB author Toni Noble to Perth
and Kinross - June 2010. Perth and Kinross EPS co-present with
Toni Noble at European Conference of Positive
Psychology in Copenhagen
8Research Questions
- Whether Bounce Back had an impact on the sense
of connectedness of pupils - Whether Bounce Back had an impact on resilience
of pupils - Whether Bounce Back had an impact on the
resilience and wellbeing of staff using the
programme - Which factors influenced the successful
implementation of Bounce Back as a whole school
programme
9Data Collection
- Child Data
- Connectedness Questionnaire
- Resilience Questionnaire
- Focus Groups
- Qualitative data from staff and children
- Teaching Staff Data
- Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale
- Resilience profile
- Structured Interviews
- Ongoing research journal ( links with schools)
10Connectedness results
- Graph 1 Percentage of pupil responses pre and
post evaluation for the statement Students in
this class are kind towards each other
11Connectedness
- Graph 2 Percentage of pupil responses pre and
post evaluation for the statement No one feels
left out and lonely in this class
12Connectedness
- Graph 3 Percentage of pupil responses pre and
post evaluation for the statement This is a safe
class to be in because no-one tries to hurt you
or your feelings
13Connectedness
- Graph 4 Percentage of pupil responses pre and
post evaluation for the statement I feel like I
belong and am accepted in this class
14Peer relationships connectedness (contd)
- Its made it a better school because everyone is
being kinder - We are a Bounce Back school and its made us a
happier school - Makes the school a better place to teach get
teached - It helps me build and keep my friendships
- The class as a whole is more of a team
- Pupils are more appreciative of the times when
someone else helps them - Helps us to solve problems together
15Resilience
- Graph 5 Percentage of pupil responses pre and
post evaluation for statement Feelings just
happen to you and theres nothing you can do
about them -
16Resilience
- Graph 6a Percentage of negative coping skills
responses reported by Primary 5 pupils pre and
post evaluation
17Resilience
- Graph 6b Percentage of positive coping skills
responses reported by Primary 5 pupils pre and
post evaluation
18Resilience
- Bounce Back changes the way you act
- You can use the skills you learn anywhere
- Pupils have a greater range of ways of moving on
from problems - Now they can be more self reliant
- Rather than asking a teacher for help we have
the skills to solve the problem ourselves - Children are showing that they can sort
playground upsets for themselves - When children fall out they are trying to notice
the positive things because they realise the
negative things are less helpful - it helps us think well
- Bounce back helps you feel better when you are
down
19Staff wellbeing and resilience
- Warwick Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (WEMWBS)
- Mean score in Sept 2008 49.76
- Mean score in May 2009 53.16
- I am more aware of my own thinking, I try to
find positives - Lots of optimistic thinking in the staff room
- I use the acronym when I have worries too
20Factors influencing the successful implementation
of Bounce Back
- Whole school initiative using Bounce Back
language across school - Time for planning, organisation and ongoing
discussion and support - Bank of resources especially literature
- Leadership
- Key co-ordinator
- Flexible use of resources
- Revisiting and re-evaluating progress
- Commitment to values underpinning the programme
- Stable and mutually supportive staff
- Timing and goodness of fit with other initiatives
- Linking with home?
- Support from Perth and Kinross council