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DCU Anti-Bullying Centre
CoNARS - Co-designing Neuroaffirmative Anti-bullying Resources and Supports

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. 

Voices Across the School: A Whole-Staff Survey on Bullying, Inclusion, and Supports for All Students (August 2026)

This research aims to gather a whole-staff perspective on bullying across primary, post-primary and special schools in Ireland. School staff will be invited to share their experiences regarding bullying intervention and prevention, in particular among neurodivergent students who research shows face an increased risk of bullying (Accardo et al., 2025; Park et al., 2020). Seeking wider school staff perspectives, including both teaching and non-teaching staff, is especially important given their fundamental role in students’ school experiences and across bullying intervention and prevention, as recognised within existing policy (Bí Cinealta Procedures, 2024) and research (Foody & O’Higgins-Norman, 2017; Bradshaw et al., 2019) and given that their views are so rarely heard (Bradshaw et al., 2019; Hanlon et al., 2025). Staff responses will be used to develop neuroaffirmative guidelines and practical recommendations for designing and developing future supports for schools and guide future research in the area. 

Please Note: In our research, we use the term neurodivergence to describe people whose brains work in unique and different ways. Their ways of communicating, processing information and experiencing and interacting with the world differs from what might be considered ‘typical’. 

Neurodivergent refers to multiple neurologically based differences across the human spectrum, including but not limited to:

  • Clinical diagnoses such as: Autism, ADHD, Developmental Language Disorder (DLD), Developmental Co-Ordination Disorder (DCD), Tourette’s, Down Syndrome, Intellectual/Learning Disability

  • Specific learning difficulties (e.g. Dyslexia, Dyscalculia, Dysgraphia)

Note: This list doesn’t cover every difference, and not everyone with these differences chooses to use the label "neurodivergent".

The term also includes:

  • People without an official diagnosis who may fit the above descriptions but have not received a formal assessment. 

  • People with multiple diagnoses: Many people have more than one diagnosis (such as being both Autistic and ADHD).

  • People with unique needs: Some people process the world differently, even if their specific profile doesn't fit a standard diagnosis 

Sources: Fletcher et al., 2021; 2025; Grant et al., 2025; McLennan et al., 2024; Neurodiversity Ireland, 2025; Walker, 2026

Survey link: https://dcusurveys.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_8ImnZkNplEJrwqi 

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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