Prince William County Public Schools

Student Prevention Programs & Family Assistance

The Student Prevention Program & Family Assistance staff offer programs to develop and support students to grow up healthy, caring, and responsible. We follow PWCS Strategic Plan, Goal 2: Climate: The teaching, learning, and working environment is caring, safe and healthy, and values diversity. Specific programs listed below promote a climate which supports equality, diversity, and collaborative behaviors among students and stakeholders. We aim to increase safe, responsible, and healthy behaviors and empower students. The major goal is to increase school connectedness to facilitate positive outcomes.

Positive values and social competencies of:

• Cultural competence, equality, social justice (peer diversity training, peer mediation);
• Resistance skills, planning, decision-making (bullying prevention, substance abuse prevention);
• Peaceful conflict resolution (peer mediation, bullying prevention);
• Caring, positive view of the future (suicide prevention);
• Interpersonal competence, honesty, integrity (bullying/harassment prevention); and
• External assets are developed in youth by provision of opportunities for leadership.

Bullying Prevention and Development of Social Competencies

Anti-Defamation League's (ADL) No Place for Hate® initiative is a school climate improvement initiative that provides PreK-12 schools with an organizing framework for combating bias, bullying and hatred, leading to long-term solutions for creating and maintaining a positive change. ADL encourages schools to find a student-centered approach to combat hate and discrimination in their school communities. Schools receive their designation by creating a committee of students, staff and family members, signing the Place for Hate® pledge and planning and implementing school-wide activities that address school-based issues.

Prince William County Public Schools currently participating in No Place for Hate® for the 2022-23 school year:

STUDENT-LED EFFORTS to combat bullying include the "World of Difference" Peer Diversity Program which provides high school students with the training and support necessary to facilitate anti-bias education workshops for their peers in the classroom. The program creates an awareness of the prejudices in society and discusses methods to combat them. Students participate in the annual PWCS Leadership Conference to younger middle school students. Every year peer trainers attend the Washington Symphony Orchestra's "In Concert Against Hate" at the Kennedy Center.

PWCS is committed to a school environment in which students are free from bullying. Our regulation was updated to include the following definition which is consistent with the Virginia Department of Education Model Policy.

Bullying means any aggressive and unwanted behavior that is intended to harm, intimidate, or humiliate the victim; involves a real or perceived power imbalance between the aggressor or aggressors and victim; and is repeated over time or causes severe emotional trauma. "Bullying" also includes cyberbullying, which involves the transmission, receipt, or display of electronic messages and/or images. Bullying does not include ordinary teasing, horseplay, argument, or peer conflict.

PWCS Bullying Regulation 733.01-1

Bullying Prevention Resources

A recent study shows that 17% of all students report having been bullied more than once within a school year. This means almost one in five students have experienced bullying in some manner. Learn the ten myths of bullying.

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
  • #StopBullying
  • Violence Prevention
• Girls Health.gov
  • Bullying
• Stomp Out Bullying
• Suicide and Bullying: Issue Brief (SPRC) (PDF)
• VA Department of Health - Youth Violence and BullyingPrevention
• VA Department of Education - Bullying Prevention

Online Safety

• Net Smartz is an online safety education program providing age-appropriate videos and activities to help teach children be safer online with the goal of helping children to become more aware of potential online risks and empowering them to help prevent victimization by making safer choices on and offline.

Peer Training Programs at High Schools

Students practice activities, participate in special events, and conduct short workshops, related to diversity and anti-bias education. School coordinators are trained annually.

Substance Abuse and Prevention

• Student Prevention Programs & Family Assistance includes consultation services for school administrators as they work with students involved in Code of Behavior violations in the area of substance abuse.
• The Stop and Think: Vaping, Marijuana, and Opioid Prevention Program is a virtual, one-session educational program designed for students who have violated a portion of the Prince William County Public Schools (PWCS) “Code of Behavior” related to substance use for the first time. This program replaces the previous Focus on Tobacco program and focuses on the mental and physical effects of substance use specifically vaping, marijuana, and opioids. The goal is to provide students the opportunity to gain accurate information, honestly assess their involvement with substances, and make personal decisions about behavior changes necessary to ensure their health, well-being, and academic success.  

Parent Programs

Student Services has collaborated with schools and the Safe Schools Advisory Council to present a series of programs of interest that directly relate to our prevention efforts.

• "After the Hurt" was a program designed to help parents guide their children through trials to success;
• "With Help Comes Hope" was a parent event with Battlefield High School to help parents support youth who experience grief and stress;
• "Take Away Student Bullying" was a special session at Benton Middle School to help parents understand signs of bullying and ways to address it with their children; and
• "To Take Away Bullying, You Need to Know Bullying" was an interactive program featuring an international bullying expert and conflict resolution specialist.