Table 1.

Working within the school system

	Implementation successes	Implementation challenges
School culture	There’s just an overall feeling of respect in this school. They don’t tolerate … low-grade violence … you don’t see that happening at this school. I think that [positive] school norm really sets the stage for allowing an intimidated student to take risks and step out of those, personal confines and talk about what’s going on. (John)	The whole culture of the school is about denying that there are any problems … They didn’t want to name it, they talked about maybe they would be more comfortable if we were looking for referrals for “guys with anger problems.” They were trying to protect their reputation and so because of that we got very few referrals. (Jack)
	And there are “No bullying” signs on the hall, and everybody is pretty aware of what’s happening [in students’ relationships] over there. (Brendon)	The school that is not going so well – they’re not doing well academically. There is a lot of pressure, that makes it hard for [the teachers] to allow students to come to group. The kids need to be in class because [the teachers’] jobs sort of depend on that. (Melissa)
Referral process	Teachers tend to know what’s going on with their students so [they] are glad to know that a student they know is having these issues is getting help somewhere. (Jessica)	They may make a ton of referrals but most of them will not be good referrals because the student rarely comes to school or skips a lot or is having academic problems to the point where they won’t be allowed to come to group. (Jack)
	The referrals that were given were, for the most part, appropriate referrals. They were students that needed our services, but were also behaviorally able to work in a group setting. (John)	I just can’t get kids to come to group – whether it’s the teachers won’t release them or the kids have attendance issues. If you’re never able to establish a core group, you really just can’t get started. (John)