SPV has initiated a character  education/leadership program at the following schools in the Cleveland  Metropolitan School District during the 2012 – 2013  school year: Mound, Willow, Miles Park, Fullerton, Buckeye Woodland, Louis Munoz Marin and A. J. Rickoff

The recent study in Education Week (November 3, 2010) found few benefits in character education.  The study stated that social development programs do not produce any improvements in student’s behavior, student perceptions of school climate, student social growth or academic performance.  In addition, the existing programs did not improve the use of school-wide strategies related to character building, teachers’ attitudes, or teachers’ use of routine classroom practices, such as engaging students in decision making that are thought to contribute to students’ character development. The Society for Prevention of Violence offers a student social skills training program that features many of … Continue reading →

by Vincent J. Granito, Jr., Ph.D. Assistant Professor, Psychology Lorain County Community College As an instructor of social psychology, I am often asked by students, “how can we rid the world of social problems such as violence, aggression, conflict, prejudice, and discrimination.” Unfortunately, the field of psychology does not have clear-cut answers to prevention, but instead creates theories for understanding how these problems arise and the nature to which these conditions exist. Most of these problems are very complex and entail a diversity of factors, which makes prevention by one simple method almost impossible. This article will present three approaches … Continue reading →

Lately, bullying has been made the scapegoat for violent behavior and even for “kids killing kids” in school. Since a bully is habitually cruel to smaller and weaker people, bullying certainly is a violent act and usually directed against those that cannot fend for themselves. Generally, this type of violence starts with verbal demeaning attacks to scare and humiliate the victim and ends up in physical fights. It is deduced that the bullies are usually the instigators of violence but at rare occasions, the victims revolt and resort to violence. In any case, this bully type of violence can lead … Continue reading →

by Ruth Weltmann Begun This paper will briefly describe the similarity and the difference between two methodologies which are being used very effectively in two applications to prevent violence. Both make use of social skills and employ a structured mediation process to achieve the objective of solving conflicts in a peaceful non-violent manner and of preventing violent acts from occurring. In one application, the methodology is employed to resolve disputes between two or more parties peacefully and to avoid violence during the process. This application is called Conflict Resolution. The methodology of Conflict Resolution is always applied retro-actively and as … Continue reading →

A school tragedy occurred in the Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. Everybody asked “why” and how can it be prevented? The Ready-to-Use Social Skills Lessons & Activities and the Ready-to-Use Violence Prevention Skills Lessons & Activities curricula developed by Society for Prevention of Violence (SPV) are used by the SPV to teach school staff, children of all ages, and workshop participants, proactive social and violence prevention skills combined with conflict resolution methods. This training, when continually reinforced, has been recognized to be very effective with children and adults in learning to predict and prevent violence situations and to cope … Continue reading →