KiVa (Anti-bullying programme) - Combined universal and indicated type of an anti-bullying programme for school children

The programme has been evaluated in randomized controlled trials in Finland, United Kingdom (2020), the Netherlands (2020), and in Italy (2016). Evaluations are underway in Estonia, Greece and UK (Clarkson et al., 2022). The intervention is also implemented in Spain (Lopez-Catalan et al. 2022) and Belgium. The latter two evaluations are not considered in the Xchange rating because of methodological issues.

KiVa was developed and first evaluated in Finland. Subsequently, two thirds of all Finnish comprehensive schools started implementing KiVa IN 2011. For this first evaluation, 78 schools were randomly assigned to intervention and control conditions. The first phase (2007-2008 with 8237 pupils, aged 10-12 years in Grades 4-6 in 78 schools) demonstrated significant reductions in pupil reported bullying and victimisation after one academic year (Kärnä et al., 2011). KiVa was found to significantly reduce (by 17-30% in comparison to control schools) both peer- and self-reported bullying and victimization. The odds of being a victim were about 1.5-1.8 times higher and being a bully 1.2-1.3 times higher for control school’s students than for an intervention school students.

Reductions occurred in all nine forms of bullying examined (including physical, verbal, and cyber-victimisation; Salmivalli, Kärnä, & Poskiparta, 2011). In phase two (2008-2009 with children aged 7-15 years, Grades 1-9) victimisation and bullying reduced by approximately a third for intervention schools. Increased empathy and self-efficacy in supporting and defending victims, and reductions in bully reinforcing behaviour were also reported (Salmivalli & Poskiparta, 2012). Furthermore, anxiety and depression decreased, peer perceptions improved (Williford et al., 2012) and school liking, academic motivation, and performance increased (Salmivalli, Garandeau, & Veenestra, 2012) (Clarkson et al. 2019).

A secondary analysis of this Finnish data (Garandeau et al. 2022) applied multilevel structural equation modelling analyses in pre-test and post-test (1 year later) data in the same sample (n=15,103, 399 control and 462 intervention classrooms from 140 schools). The study showed that KiVa had a positive effect after nine months on affective empathy, but not cognitive empathy, independent of students’ gender, initial levels of empathy, bullying, or popularity, nor of school type or classroom bullying norms.

The age group 10-12 years showed the best result in Finland (Unit 2 lesson curriculum) (Kärnä et al., 2011). Indeed, KiVa’s anti-bullying work has been found to be more challenging in Finnish secondary than in its primary schools (Kärnä et al., 2013).

The Italian RCT (Nocentini & Menesini, 2016) involved 2042 students in grades 4 and 6 (approx. 8 to 11 years old) in 13 randomly assigned school to intervention group (KiVa) and to control group (usual school provision). The study focused on different outcomes, such as bullying, victimisation, pro-bullying attitudes, pro-victim attitudes, and empathy towards victims. Multilevel models showed that KiVa reduced bullying and victimisation and increased pro-victim attitudes and empathy toward the victim in grade 4, with ES = 0.24 to -.40. In grade 6, KiVa reduced bullying, victimisation and pro-bullying attitudes, the effect was smaller, but also significant (d>= 0.20). The study showed that the odds of being a victim were 1.93 times higher for a control group than for intervention group.

The Dutch RCT (Huitsing, 2020) evaluated KiVa and Kiva+ among 4383 students in grades 3 – 4 (aged 8-9) from 98 schools who volunteered to participate in the research. The study collected outcome data at five time points over a period of three years. At the baseline, two-third of the participating schools were randomly assigned to the intervention group (KiVa or KiVa+, with an additional intervention component of network feedback to teachers) and one-third to the control group (waiting list, case as usual). The study showed that self-reported victimisation and bullying reduced more strongly in KiVa-schools compared with control schools, and with stronger effects after two school years of implementation. Moreover, it showed that the odds of being a victim were 1.29 – 1.63 times higher for control group, and the odds of being a bully were 1.19 – 1.66 higher than for KiVa students. There were no significant differences between KiVa and KiVa+.

The British two-arm waitlist control cluster RCT (Axford et al., 2020) involved 3214 students (aged 7-11) in 22 primary schools. The schools were randomly allocated to the intervention group and waitlist control group (usual school provision) with a 1:1 ratio. The outcomes targeted were student-reported victimisation and bullying perpetration, teacher reported child behaviour and emotional well-being, and school absenteeism (administrative reports). There was no statistically significant effect on the primary outcome of child-reported victimisation or on the secondary outcomes. The impact on victimisation was not moderated by gender, age or victimisation status at baseline. The trial found insufficient evidence to conclude that KiVa had an effect on the primary outcome. The programme has been rated as Promising by Blueprints for Healthy Youth Development based on the review of studies conducted worldwide.