CoNARS - Co-designing Neuroaffirmative Anti-bullying Resources and Supports
Project Partners/Funders
Partners
- Department of Education and Youth
Project Overview:
Bullying is a fundamental global and societal issue with established links between bullying and adverse mental health outcomes including anxiety, low self-esteem (Fisher et al., 2013; Foody et al., 2017), school burnout and early school leaving (Cornell et al., 2013). This has led to a national and international drive for bullying interventions and supports (E.g. Department of Education and Youth, 2024; United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child,1989; United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, 2006).
This is especially important for neurodivergent children who are at an increased risk for bullying (Accardo et al., 2025; Park et al., 2020) in particular during adolescence (Blake et al., 2012; Kenny et al., 2023; McNally et al., 2025) however, there remains limited knowledge as to what works best in supporting neurodivergent learners across the continuum of education provision (Badger et al., 2024; Kenny et al., 2023; McNally et al., 2025) with notable tension surrounding how bullying is understood (Badger et al., 2024; 2025) and a particular emphasis on developing practice partnerships and collaborations with core stakeholders in particular children themselves (Spears et al., 2021).
In response to these gaps and informed by a whole education approach to bullying (United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation, 2020), this research project seeks to adopt a participatory research design in examining stakeholder perspectives, in particular children themselves in recognising their inalienable right to be seen and heard in research regarding matters of relevance to their lives (UNCRC, 1989; UNCRPD, 2006). By consulting directly with core stakeholders, we seek to develop a rigorous understanding of bullying in supporting the development of meaningful and accessible supports that accurately reflect stakeholder views and supports future empirical work in the field.
These resources and supports will contribute to our FUSE programme, Ireland’s only research-based anti-bullying and online safety programme for schools.
Project Goals
This research study aims to understand what constitutes bullying from the perspectives of core stakeholders (i.e. parents, teachers, school leaders, Special Needs Assistants and children) and examine their views with regards to designing and developing authentic and meaningful bullying prevention and intervention supports for neurodivergent learners . The first phase focuses on the objective of developing a set of neuroaffirmative guidelines and principles to support schools and inform future empirical research in this field. This is in line with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989; 2009), the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006) and the National Framework for Children and Young People’s Participation in Decision Making (DCEDIY, 2024)
Further, following completion of the consultation process, stakeholders will be invited to contribute their experiences surrounding their engagement in this research in addition to key directions for future research in this area. This is especially important given calls to build capacity surrounding the authentic involvement of stakeholders, in particular children themselves, in research (Tesfaye et al., 2019).
Research Areas
Inclusion, Neurodiversity, Participatory Research, Co-design
Principal Investigator
Dr. Christina O’Keeffe christina.okeeffe@dcu.ie
Research Team
Dr. Carol O’Toole
Maya Powers