Bullying and Mental Health: Impact and Interventions

Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health (ACAMH)

DOI: 10.13056/acamh.21511
14 – 18 November is Anti-Bullying Week. For this podcast, we are joined by Dr. Sînziana Oncioiu, Professor Lucy Bowes and Carolina Guzman Holst to discuss bullying in children and adolescents. Sînziana, Lucy, and Carolina are all members of the Oxford lab of Risk and Resilience, Genes and Environment, known as the oRANGE Lab, at the University of Oxford.
As the principle investigator at the oRANGE Lab, Lucy begins by highlighting the main focus of the oRANGE Lab and providing insight into the definition of bullying.
Sînziana follows by discussing how prevalent bulling is, before Lucy comments on the various roles that young people take on when bullying occurs and why it is important to understand them.
Sînziana explores what is known about the link between bullying and mental health, with Carolina then commenting on how the relationship between bullying victimisation and mental health played out during the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK.
Lucy and Sînziana also discuss what makes some young people and children more likely to be targets for bullies as well as what factors make some people more likely to be perpetrators.
Carolina provides insight into the effectiveness of anti-bullying interventions and their impact on mental health, plus explores whether the current interventions are enough to support those most at risk.
With the oRANGE Lab having incorporated some innovative designs and technologies, such as virtual reality, into their studies, Lucy shares some examples and comments on what risk and protective factors have been identified by their research that help determine how a young person will fare if they’ve been bullied.
Lucy then comments on how social norms and other systemic factors influence the prevalence rates of bulling before Carolina shares what the implications are of their findings for teachers and other people in education, and also for CAMH professionals.
Furthermore, given that we know bulling is a major public mental health risk, Lucy shares what her message is to policymakers.