November 29, 2015
Anyone who has ever had to endure gossip or exclusion in school knows that the phrase "words will never hurt me" is a giant lie. Researchers at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia take this kind of "relational aggression" just as seriously as physical violence, which is why their Violence Prevention Initiative began an in-depth study of a leadership program that helps young girls learn social problem-solving skills.
The good news: the program, called Friend to Friend, worked. And it kept on working, even a year after the program was over.
That means that educators now know of an important tool that can be used to reduce relational aggression (what non-scientists might just call "being mean to your friends.") What's more, the program is specifically aimed at inner-city schools. All the girls tested were black and attended low-income schools in Philadelphia.
"Including this type of positive skill development in urban school curricula is important because children attending inner-city, under-resourced schools are at high risk for emotional and behavioral problems," said the study's lead author, psychologist Stephen Leff.
The program, designed with input from students, teachers and parents, takes place over 20 sessions that are just 40 minutes each – short enough to fit into the children's lunch period. Using cartoons, videos and role-playing games to engage the students, Friend to Friend teaches girls social problem-solving skills so that they can resolve disputes amicably, instead of resorting to gossip or name-calling. The girls also have the chance to lead their own Friend to Friend lessons in their classrooms.
144 girls from third to fifth grade, who were deemed particularly aggressive by their peers, participated in the experiment. Half of them were randomly selected for the Friend to Friend program, while the other half attended a study-skills program instead, in order to serve as a control group.
Researchers looked at teacher reports on the girls before the program and one year later, as well as self-reports. Since the girls all had new teachers who had no idea if their students had participated in the program or not, there was less chance of bias influencing the results of the experiment.
The results showed "significant improvements" on measures of social behavior. That makes Friend to Friend the only program to date that has been shown to reduce relational aggression in urban, minority girls for a full year.
For Leff, who is also co-director of CHOP's Violence Prevention Initiative, the implications of this study extend beyond just one program.
"This study demonstrates not only the effect of a specific aggression prevention program, but also the promise of curricula that emphasize social problem-solving and leadership skills to reduce relational aggression in urban schools," he said.
