P-01 Preventing Violence in Jamaican Schools: The Way Forward

This paper presents an overview of current school violence prevention concerns and practices in Jamaica. Convenience sampling was used to select 204 educators throughout Jamaica with a modal age group of 31-40 years. The participants included educators and practitioners such as school counsellors in the Jamaican school system. Respondent scores on the School Violence Questionnaire and Research Protocol were used to provide the data for this study. It includes a summary of a mixed-methods survey of violence and violence prevention in schools. The results indicate that a significant proportion of the respondents had observed school violence and had to contend with violent behaviours in schools, χ2 (1, n = 195) = 132.93, p < 0.01). Ninety-nine percent of the teachers expressed the opinion that schools needed to be more serious about their efforts to implement meaningful discipline practices. These results suggest the need for interventions to help students who exhibit violent behaviors in schools. The paper discusses research that provides information regarding characteristics and consequences of appropriate instructional programmes that are applicable to at-risk youth, educators, and parents.