A/HRC/19/64 C. 1. Widening awareness and advocacy to prevent and address violence against children in schools and in justice related institutions Preventing and addressing violence against children in schools 46. Education has a unique potential to generate an environment where attitudes condoning violence can be changed and non-violent behaviour can be learned. Schools are well placed to break patterns of violence and provide skills to communicate, to negotiate and support peaceful solutions to conflicts. However, this potential is in marked contrast with the daily reality of millions of children. Within and around educational settings, both girls and boys continue to be exposed to violence, including verbal abuse, intimidation, physical aggression, and in some cases sexual abuse. At times they are also victims of gang violence and assault. 47. Recognizing the crucial importance of education in safeguarding children‘s rights, and of violent-free schools as catalysts for non-violence in the communities that they serve, the Special Representative, in cooperation with the Government of Norway and the Council of Europe, organized in June 2011 in Oslo, an expert consultation with the participation of policy makers, education and child rights experts, civil society organizations and academics from different regions of the world, as well as United Nations agencies. The lessons and recommendations from the meeting will be addressed in the Special Representative‘s forthcoming publication entitled Tackling Violence in Schools: a global perspective. 48. The consultation stressed the importance of preventing and responding to violence in schools through a multidimensional strategy, which should take particularly into account the priority dimensions set out below. Promoting holistic, participatory and child-centred strategies 49. Schools are an inherent part of the communities in which they are located; violence in the school mirrors social attitudes condoning violence, and reflects the environment surrounding the school, including social unrest, availability of weapons and criminal gang activities. Hence, efforts to bring an end to violence in school must not only invest in securing a safe and child-friendly environment inside education settings, but also seek to address the cultural acceptance of violence against children, and invest in violence prevention and positive discipline initiatives for families and the community at large. 50. Schools succeed better in their efforts to curb violence particularly when they break away from a strictly sectoral approach in favour of holistic, participatory and child-centred strategies. Such strategies help to involve families in school life and children as crucial actors and agents of change, shaping decisions with their perspectives and experience. Furthermore, these strategies help to operate in a multifaceted way, by investing in teacher and school staff training, curricula development, school administration, policy development, budgetary allocations and strong legislation to secure children‘s protection from violence. 51. This whole-school ethos was evident in the experiences shared at the Oslo meeting, including those designed to prevent bullying in schools. The success of these initiatives has been closely associated with the engagement of teachers, staff and students, as well as parents and members of the community. The reduction of incidents of bullying has equally been dependent on a strategic combination of factors, namely: • Sincere commitment to address this phenomenon, with the formal adoption and wide dissemination of anti-bullying rules, and their launch though an official school event; • The creation of a governance system in which all stakeholders participate; 11