KiVa is an innovative school-based anti-bullying programme which has been developed using cutting-edge research on bullying and its mechanisms.
KiVa is an evidence-based programme to prevent bullying and to tackle the cases of bullying effectively. The third aspect of KiVa is constant monitoring of the situation in one’s school and the changes taking place over time; this is enabled by the online tools included in KiVa.
These tools produce annual feedback for each school about their implementation of the programme as well as the outcomes obtained.
KivA Unit 1 works with children from 1st to 3rd Class, whilst KiVa Unit 2 is designed for students from 4th to 6th Class.
KiVa includes both universal and indicated actions. The universal actions, such as the KiVa curriculum (student lessons and online games), are directed at all students and focus mainly on preventing bullying. The indicated actions are to be used when a bullying case has emerged.
KiVa was developed at the University of Turku in Finland. Its developers are experts who have been studying the phenomenon of bullying and its mechanisms for decades.
The effects of the KiVa Anti-Bullying Programme have been evaluated in numerous studies.
KiVa is now being evaluated in several countries: the first international studies from the Netherlands, Estonia, Italy, and Wales are emerging, showing that KiVa is effective also outside of Finland.
In the UK, between 2012-2013, seventeen schools participated in a pilot trial of KiVa Unit 2 (for children aged 9 to 11 years). Significant reductions were reported in bullying and victimisation. Teachers provided positive feedback on the content, suitability of lessons, and pupil engagement. To learn more about the results, click here. A randomised controlled trial is presently underway and results from phase 1 will be published soon.