Program Profile: WITS Primary Program

This is a community-based, schoolwide intervention aimed at children in grades 1 through 3 that targets socially competent behaviors and risks for peer victimization. The program was rated Promising. The program was shown to have statistically significant, positive effects on physical and relational victimization and social competence, but not on social responsibility or physical aggression.

A Promising rating implies that implementing the program may result in the intended outcome(s).

Program Goals/Target Population

The WITS Primary Program is a community-based, schoolwide peer-victimization-prevention program aimed at children in grades 1 through 3 that targets socially competent behaviors and risks for peer victimization. The goal of the program is to create responsive communities that provide children with safe and positive choices when faced with peer conflicts and reliable adult assistance to ultimately prevent peer victimization.

WITS provides a common language to be used in schools, communities, and homes. The WITS acronym, which stands for Walk away, Ignore it, Talk it out, and Seek help, provides children, school staff, and parents with simple, developmentally appropriate conflict-resolution strategies for handling conflicts with peers.

Program Components

There are several components of the WITS Primary Program. The teacher lesson plan provides early childhood literature and activities to reinforce WITS messages in the classroom. The lessons are easily integrated into elementary schools’ existing literacy, language arts, social studies, and health curricula. Teachers are asked to use one age-appropriate picture book from the WITS list per month, while following the lesson plans based on the WITS books provided in the program guide. The lesson plans are available online (see Implementation Information for a link to the website). In addition, by completing the 90-minute, online-training module, teachers and staff can become Accredited WITS Programs Teachers.

The booklist offers popular picture books that are used in the program, and information about literacy techniques used in the stories, vocabulary building, songs, and other activities. Aboriginal and French book lists are also available.

Schools are encouraged to engage community leaders (such as police, firefighters, paramedics, Aboriginal elders, or university athletes) in implementing the WITS Primary Program. After completing the 60-minute, online-training module, community leaders conduct a “swearing-in” ceremony to initiate the program each year. Children are “deputized” as special constables and they promise to keep their classmates and school safe by using their WITS to deal with teasing, bullying, and helping other students to use their WITS. Children are provided with WITS activity books, bookmarks, and other materials meant to act as reminders of the WITS message at school and at home. Community leaders visit classrooms throughout the school year and advocate “using your WITS.”

Key Personnel

The program includes teachers, administrators, community leaders, student athletes, and parents.

Program Theory

The program is informed by a developmental science emphasis on supporting protective factors in children, and in their social ecologies, to prevent peer victimization and bullying (Bronfenbrenner 1989). New materials are also available for children in grades 4 to 6.

Study 1

Leadbeater and Sukhawathanakul (2011) implemented a quasi-experimental design method in which six treatment schools implemented the WITS program and five comparison schools did not. All of the schools were located in separate but adjacent school districts in a metropolitan area in western Canada. Participants included 830 1st- to 3rd-grade students from 67 classrooms. A total of 422 treatment students participated in the WITS program, and 418 students from the comparison schools were involved in the evaluation. The students ranged in age from 5 to 10 years old. The students in the treatment and comparison schools were similar in terms of demographics.

All treatment schools implemented the WITS program for at least 1 year. None of the comparison schools implemented the program. Books for the treatment schools were selected from the WITS program book list. Comparison schools selected their own books. All treatment schools received 40-minute sessions for staff members to review WITS training. WITS program police liaisons received 1- to 2-hour training sessions to prepare them for implementing the program initiation ceremony and to do 4- to 6-week follow-up classroom visits. These community leaders also gave the children “take home gifts” to bring the message home. Parents in the schools that implemented WITS received information pamphlets each year of the study and were given the chance to meet a member of the research team at an open house at the beginning of the 1st school year of the study.

Children with parental consent individually rated their experiences with physical and relational victimization using the Social Experience Questionnaire. Teachers completed the British Columbia Ministry of Education’s Performance Standards: Social Responsibility Framework to rate children’s social responsibility levels.

Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) analyses were used to examine the outcomes, and included appropriate statistical adjustments for differences between the groups. Baseline data was collected in the fall of students’ 1st-grade year; and the second follow-up was conducted during the spring of their 2nd-grade year, 18 months after baseline.

Study 2

Hoglund and colleagues (2012) conducted a quasi-experimental design study, in which they followed a cohort of 432 children from 17 public elementary schools in a city in western Canada over 6 years. The sample was selected when the children were in 1st grade. Schools were recruited after attending a training session led by the developer of the WITS Primary Program.

The treatment group included 11 schools that agreed to implement the program. The comparison group included 6 schools in the same district that did not attend the in-service training and did not implement the WITS Primary Program during the course of the study. Almost half (49.3 percent) of the students from WITS schools were female, and 26.6 percent were an ethnic minority (including Southeast and East Asian, South Asian, Aboriginal, or other). Almost half (47.2 percent) of the students in the comparison schools were female and 22.5 percent were an ethnic minority. The WITS and comparison schools did not differ in terms of gender, family risk (indicated by single-parent household, low parental education, low income, and high household moves), or school-level poverty at baseline.

Peer victimization was measured using children’s self-reports on the Social Experiences Questionnaire. Social–emotional adjustment was assessed from teacher reports on the Early School Behavior Rating Scale and the Behavior Assessment Scale for Children. The authors used HLM analyses to determine program effects over 6 years.

Program information can be found at http://www.witsprogram.ca/. The program is available in English and French. 

Teachers and staff can complete the 90-minute, online-training module and become Accredited WITS Programs Teachers. There is also a 60-minute, online-training module for community leaders.

These sources were used in the development of the program profile:

These sources were used in the development of the program profile:

Following are CrimeSolutions-rated programs that are related to this practice:

Bullying Prevention Programs

The practice includes programs designed to reduce bullying perpetration and victimization and to increase positive bystander behavior in bullying situations. The practice is rated Effective for reducing bullying perpetration (e.g., overall and physical), reducing bullying victimization (e.g., overall and relational), and increasing positive bystander behavior. The practice is rated No Effects for increasing bystander empathy for bullying victims and reducing verbal bullying victimization.

Evidence Ratings for Outcomes

	Juvenile Problem & At-Risk Behaviors - Bullying
	Victimization - Overall bullying victimization
	Victimization - Relational bullying victimization
	Victimization - Physical bullying victimization
	Victimization - Bystander intervention
	Mental Health & Behavioral Health - Empathy for the victim
	Victimization - Verbal bullying victimization

School-Based Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Programs

Designed to foster the development of five interrelated sets of cognitive, affective, and behavioral competencies, in order to provide a foundation for better adjustment and academic performance in students, which can result in more positive social behaviors, fewer conduct problems, and less emotional distress. The practice was rated Effective in reducing students’ conduct problems and emotional stress.

Evidence Ratings for Outcomes

	Juvenile Problem & At-Risk Behaviors - Multiple juvenile problem/at-risk behaviors
	Mental Health & Behavioral Health - Internalizing behavior

Parent-Involved Antibullying Programs for Youth

This practice includes programs that offer a parent-involved component to reduce bullying perpetration and victimization. This practice is rated Promising for reducing bullying victimization and perpetration, reducing negative parenting, and improving positive parenting skills but is rated No Effects for reducing youth depression.

Evidence Ratings for Outcomes

	Victimization - Bullying victimization
	Family Functioning - Parenting skills
	Family Functioning - Negative parenting skills
	Juvenile Problem & At-Risk Behaviors - Bullying
	Mental Health & Behavioral Health - Internalizing behavior

Why might a practice's outcome ratings differ from the ratings of specific programs encompassed by that practice?