Hazelden, the leading publisher of research-based prevention programs, releases the internationally successful bullying prevention program.

Center City, Minn., October 30, 2007 -- The Olweus Bullying Prevention Program (OBPP), the most researched and best-known bullying prevention program, is now available in a revised and updated form from Hazelden Publishing. The announcement was made by Kris Van Hoof-Haines, vice president for Hazelden Publishing. With over thirty-five years of research and successful implementation all over the world, OBPP is a whole-school program that has been proven to prevent or reduce bullying throughout a school setting.

Named after its founder, Dr. Dan Olweus (pronounced ol-VEY-us) of Norway, OBPP is a multi-component program used at the school, classroom, and individual levels. It also includes methods to reach out to parents and the community for involvement and support. School administrators, teachers, and other staff are primarily responsible for introducing and implementing the program.

Unfortunately, violence in our schools is an ever-present threat. Much of this violence stems from retribution for bullying. The goals of the program are to reduce existing bullying problems among students, to prevent the development of new bullying problems, and to achieve better peer relations at school. OBPP is not a classroom curriculum. It is a whole-school, systems-change program.

OBPP is designed for students in elementary, middle, and junior high schools (students age five to fifteen years old). All students participate in most aspects of the program, while students identified as bullying others, or as targets of bullying, receive additional individualized interventions. OBPP has been more thoroughly evaluated than any other bullying prevention/reduction program so far. Six large-scale evaluations, involving more than 40,000 students, have documented results with average reductions by 20 to 70 percent in student reports of being bullied and bullying others.

Vernard Trent, Director of the Office of School Climate and Safety for Philadelphia, emphasized, "Philadelphia, the seventh largest school district in the US, has implemented the Olweus Bullying Program in 40 schools since 2001. Our data shows that when implemented with fidelity, the program not only reduces bullying behaviors, but it effectively provides the framework for systemic improvement in school safety."

The Olweus Bullying Prevention Program has received recognition from a number of organizations including the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, University of Colorado at Boulder; Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention; U.S. Department of Justice; and the U.S. Department of Education.

For more information on the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program and related training, call 1-800-328-9000 or visit http://www.hazelden.org/olweus/.