Promoting Positive Peer Relationships (P3R)

“...gives schools the tools they need to provide a quality bullying prevention program...”
>More John Nori, National Association of Secondary School Principals

“My students, racially, economically diverse, came together in a way that I’ve not had the pleasure of seeing in my 16 years of teaching." >More Shameem Rakha, Teacher

The Stories of Us Promoting Positive Peer Relationships (P3R) bullying prevention program is composed of a unique series of film-based education resources for supporting students, educators and the broader community in addressing the problem of bullying in schools. Building upon the unprecedented success of the Australian Stories of Us, the significantly expanded American middle school program resources are now available. The elementary and high school versions will follow. The project has the support of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL), along with a broad base of leading educators from across the country.

The P3R Resources center on films developed and produced with students, and provide extensive curriculum materials, staff training and community education. The uncommonly realistic films are built from the ground up with groups of American students who collaborate in brainstorming the subject and developing the scripts. They perform all the young roles in the dramatized films, and work in supporting positions on the film crew. Every word of dialogue is their own, and every detail approved by the students.

"I think this film will make people aware of how much bullying really goes on. We filmed this just like it was our natural lives and the bullying was included in that".
Brendon, 8th Grade Student

The films are compelling as they draw upon the collective experience of the students, holding a mirror to the reality of bullying with such authenticity that some students watching the films are convinced they are real (they don’t realize that the students are ‘acting’). As a result these resources have proven uncommonly effective in the classroom – a fact supported by evaluation – and have been eagerly embraced by the education community.

Filmmaker and Stories of Us Founder Christopher Faull has teamed with three of America’s leading specialists on bullying and school violence – Professor Dorothy Espelage (UIUC), Associate Professor Susan Swearer (UNL) and Professor Shane Jimerson (UCSB) – who collaborated in development and have jointly written the accompanying text and curriculum materials.

Based upon the overwhelmingly positive response across the education community and the combined expertise of the project team, the Stories of Us P3R bullying prevention program seems destined to have a significant positive influence in helping to reduce bullying in American schools.