Over twenty years of Australian Friendly Schools’ research
Since 1999, the Friendly Schools research team has conducted 23 high quality school and community-based studies with over 40,000 Australian children and adolescents, their families and school staff.
These internationally recognised, large research projects have been translated into practical actions, training, digital tools and resources which enable Australian schools to:
- Examine the social and emotional wellbeing of their students
- Examine their existing policies and practices
- Identify strengths and areas for improvement and
- Implement evidence-based classroom and whole-school strategies that improve their students’ wellbeing and learning.
Using this research, Friendly Schools has developed and extensively tested ways to strengthen and support whole-school approaches to reduce all forms of bullying (including cyberbullying) and improve student social and emotional wellbeing in primary and secondary schools.
Not only does this research provide an unparalleled understanding of the factors that promote student social and emotional wellbeing and prevent bullying and cyberbullying, it also continues to grow and advance to keep up with the ever-changing world our children are exposed to.
❝ We’re increasingly working to meet the needs of schools and parents in supporting children’s social and emotional wellbeing. This research is constantly evolving to meet new challenges and emerging issues, focusing on the needs of sub-populations of more vulnerable children and young people and the increasing prevalence of digital technology use. As primary and secondary students’ social behaviours have evolved, so too has the Friendly Schools research. ❞
Professor Donna Cross
Friendly Schools Research Lead
The Friendly Schools’ Research Journey
Friendly Schools resources are based on more than two decades of social and emotional wellbeing research development and testing with schools.
Our research ranges from:
- Exploring understandings about social and emotional wellbeing and bullying behaviours
- Developing and testing policies and practices with school leaders, students, teachers and parents and
- Providing information and support to families and the wider community using technology such as apps and web-based resources.
The timeline below provides an overview of the major research projects that informed Friendly Schools.
Click on any circle to learn more about that study as part of our research journey or find out further project details by research focus area below.
The Friendly Schools’ Research Journey 1999 – 2025
This formative research project aimed to identify best-practice guidelines to help schools address and reduce bullying behaviours. These validated principles were the first to feature multi-level strategies to target school bullying.
Friendly Schools was one of the first empirical trials to evaluate the efficacy of a whole-school intervention to reduce bullying among primary school students. The intervention was tested in a three-year randomised control trial, involving 1968 students and their teachers and families from 29 randomly selected Australian schools.
Friendly Schools Friendly Families Project tested the Friendly Schools intervention to include more capacity-building support for schools and a greater focus on family-level activities. This randomised control trial involved over 2500 primary school students, their teachers and parents.
Supportive Schools aimed to develop and test the Friendly Schools intervention among students who had recently transitioned to secondary school. The three-year randomised control trial involved over 3000 students. and was one of the first studies to demonstrate improved bullying outcomes for adolescents following their transition from primary to secondary school.
Child Aggression Prevention aimed to reduce the development of childhood aggression in the early years of schooling in 24 WA schools. CAP was a one-year intervention developed to help teachers to reduce pre-primary children’s aggression, disruptiveness and peer rejection, and enhance their prosocial development and classroom climate.
Solid Kids Solid Schools aimed to address the limited amount of research surrounding bullying among Aboriginal children. The project worked with Yamaji region elders, young people and community members to co-develop and pilot test resources to reduce harms from school bullying in Aboriginal communities.
The ACBPS aimed to examine the nature and extent of bullying behaviour, including covert bullying and cyberbullying, in Australian secondary schools. This national study demonstrated the importance of building a school culture where both overt and covert forms of bullying are actively discouraged and highlighted the need for explicit research on cyberbullying.
KIT-Plus aimed to reduce high school students’ harm from the use of tobacco and other drugs. This three-year randomised control intervention trial trained secondary school staff in a range of strategies that focused on wellbeing, pastoral care and intervening early in a student’s use of drugs.
Cyber Friendly Schools involved the testing of evidence-based practices to address school, classroom, family, and individual risk and protective factors for cyberbullying. This world-first randomised control trial involved more than 3000 students from 35 secondary schools, and demonstrated a reduction in the prevalence of cyberbullying following a school-based intervention.
Strong Schools Safe Kids comprised in-depth school case studies over four years to develop and test ways to build staff, student and parent capacity to effectively implement evidence-informed action to prevent and manage social aggression and bullying behaviours.
Cyber Strong Schools developed and pilot-tested an online resource designed to build school staff capacity to help students behave in safe and positive ways online. This e-learning program supports staff in an ongoing manner, particularly those in non-metropolitan areas who may have difficulty accessing other forms of professional development
Beyond Bullying was an age-cohort study within a randomised control trial that tested the Friendly Schools whole-school intervention plus an innovative indicated intervention known as Motivational Interviewing (MI) to help young people who were identified as bullying others. Over two years, eight schools implemented the interventions with over 20000 secondary students.
PAVE aimed to test the effectiveness of two evidence-based approaches to supporting students who have been frequently targeted by bullying (the Friendly Schools whole-school intervention and the Cool Kids anxiety program). This randomised control effectiveness trial involved 135 schools across two Australian states.
Cyber Savvy aimed to enhance young people’s understandings of the potential harms and consequences of digital image-sharing among adolescents and help them make more thoughtful, positive decisions about the images they share online. Multiple methods were used to understand young people’s online behaviours and perspectives on image-sharing.
Belong aimed to support Deaf and Hard of Hearing children by engaging them, their families, and their teachers as co-researchers to develop and empirically test innovative school- and family-based strategies and resources. The project trialled resources for parents and teachers of children in Years 4-6 to help build their sense of belongingness and connectedness to school and enhance their social and emotional development and academic achievement.
Cyber Leaders worked with secondary school students to design a website that aimed to build students’ leadership skills and knowledge of cybersafe practices, enabling them to support their peers to prevent or reduce harm from their online behaviour.
Belong aimed to support Deaf and Hard of Hearing children by engaging them, their families, and their teachers as co-researchers to develop and empirically test innovative school- and family-based strategies and resources. The project trialled resources for parents and teachers of children in Years 4-6 to help build their sense of belongingness and connectedness to school and enhance their social and emotional development and academic achievement.
This project aimed to use Apple Watches to collect information to better understand the health, wellbeing and resilience of WA primary school principals. The project informed policy and professional learning opportunities to better support principals to help benefit students and school communities.
Bright Tomorrows App provides parents, carers and others who care about or for children with the tools they need to give children the best start to life. Bright Tomorrows aims to build community understanding about the amazing potential of a baby’s developing brain and to provide expert advice and evidence-based tools to support children’s health, development and learning
Cyber Friendly Primary Schools aims to support parents and schools to promote positive digital technology use by children. By building the confidence and skills of parents and by providing schools with resources to promote these skills in their students and the school community, the intervention aims to enhance child safety, privacy, development and wellbeing surrounding digital technology.
Beacon is a cyber-safety educational app designed to keep parents and carers up to date with trusted, tailored information, to help keep their kids safe online. Beacon provides a one-stop-shop for reliable information about the online world. Beacon arms parents and carers with the knowledge they need to confidently help navigate their children’s digital behaviours and reduce harms associated with being online.
Building Out Bullying aims to generate policy-relevant evidence, system-level guidelines, and school-based interventions to address bullying behaviour and mental health of children attending primary and secondary schools. This project investigates the impact that schools’ built environment has on peer bullying, mental health and aggression and points for intervention.
The South Australia evaluation is piloting the necessary system-level implementation support required to support South Australian schools to effectively implement Friendly Schools. The support model is being evaluated across a partnership of 10 schools in the Greater Gawler Region.
OASIS aims to support the implementation and dissemination of Friendly Schools across schools throughout Australia. The project aims to empower school communities to support student mental health and wellbeing through the co-development and testing of the digital platform OASIS (Online Assessment, Support and Implementation System).
Research journey by focus area
Cyber bullying and safety education
Parents and Families
Understanding wellbeing, bullying and whole-school approaches
- Evidence-based Guidelines for Bullying Prevention
- Australian Covert Bullying Prevalence Study
- A Review of Existing Australian and International Cyber-Safety Research
- Strong Schools Safe Kids
- Building Out Bullying
- Student Wellbeing Evidence Review
- Working with horses to promote the wellbeing of Aboriginal youth
- Cultural learnings: Strengthening Aboriginal children’s wellbeing
Early Childhood and Primary School
- Friendly Schools
- Friendly Schools Friendly Families
- Child Physical Aggression Prevention
- Solid Kids Solid Schools
- Cyber Friendly Schools
- Preventing Anxiety and Victimisation Through Education
- Belong (supporting the social and emotional wellbeing of students with Hearing Loss)
- School Social Experiences of Children with Asthma
- Principal Wellbeing
- Cyber Friendly Primary Schools
- Enhancing adolescent mental health through positive education
- Supporting social connectedness and wellbeing of young students with cystic fibrosis
- Supporting the wellbeing of students with Type 1 Diabetes
- South Australian Pilot Evaluation of Friendly Schools
Higher risk groups
- Solid Kids Solid Schools
- Belong (supporting the social and emotional wellbeing of students with Hearing Loss)
- School Social Experiences of Children with Asthma
- Beyond Bullying (students who regularly perpetrate bullying)
- Supporting social connectedness and wellbeing of students with cystic fibrosis
- Supporting the wellbeing of students with Type 1 Diabetes
- Preventing Anxiety and Victimisation Through Education
- Working with horses to promote the wellbeing of Aboriginal youth
- Cultural learnings: Strengthening Aboriginal children’s wellbeing
Secondary school research
- Supportive Schools
- Solid Kids Solid Schools
- KIT-Plus
- Strong Schools Safe Kids
- Cyber Strong Schools
- Cyber Savvy
- Cyber Leaders
- Beyond Bullying
- Enhancing adolescent mental health through positive education
- Supporting social connectedness and wellbeing of young people with cystic fibrosis
- Supporting the wellbeing of students with Type 1 Diabetes