A Reason to Skip One Day of Starbucks

As the Executive Director of the Monique Burr Foundation for Children, I am honestly overwhelmed and humbled by the progress we have made this year implementing our Speak Up Be Safe™ bullying and child abuse prevention program in elementary schools across Florida.  We expect to serve 400% more students than we did last school year.  Those 450,000 students attend the Monique Burr Foundation’s Speak Up Be Safe program in 47 out of 67 counties across the state.  (Don’t worry; we are working hard on the additional 20 counties who have not approved Speak Up Be Safe yet.) 

I think about media stories on child abuse and the horrific results from long term bullying that have caught our attention over the past year.  Some of those stories happening right here in Florida.   I don’t know a single person who didn’t hang their head when this kind of news hit the airwaves, and yet despite a nation full of concern, we are still struggling to raise funds to provide this preventative program in our public schools at no cost to the school.  We talk about these stories with ease, but at $2 a student, I wonder if our program would have changed the news.

As funds permit, we can and are implementing control features to keep our children, schools, and communities safer.  School counselors and teachers have expressed gratitude for a program that helps them teach students how to be safe against all forms of abuse and bullying at no cost to them.  Parents now have tools they didn’t even know they needed to communicate with their kids about topics that are not always comfortable but necessary.

Studies validate our approach and verify that the program content is age appropriate.  Our team of 7 employees is already working on updates to our Speak Up Be Safe program for the 2013 – 2014 school year.  We want to include the most current information about cyberbullying and bullying prevention along with developing fun interactive tools to reinforce lessons learned in the classroom.  We have also partnered with Lauren’s Kids who provides the “Safer, Smarter Kids” program for VPK – Kindergarten students. 

With all this work going on, I’m known to make a Starbucks run every now and then.  Around the holidays, I chose a Gingerbread latte… the Grande is $4.58.  It costs MBF only $2 to provide instruction and materials to a student in our state.  My coffee would pay for two students with a little left over.

Currently, we do not receive any state funding to supplement the cost of these programs.  And while it seems so simple at $2 per student, we still struggle to raise enough to meet our state’s need. In this New Year, would you be willing to step up as our kids speak up?  At the expense of one cup of Starbucks, you can provide the Speak Up Be Safe program to a student.  If you can’t forego the coffee, at a minimum “like” us on Facebook, visit our website and educate yourself on what we’re doing even if you do not have children or grandchildren.  Chances are, we’re in your community and we’re making a difference.

Happy New Year!
Lynn

Identifying, Intervening, Surviving, and Preventing Bullying – The Final Post in a Series: Each of Us Can Write Our Own Story.

So we’ve come to the end of our blog series about bullying. We’ve learned what the different types of bullying are, how the law defines bullying and cyberbullying, what the signs are of someone who is being bullied and someone who may be bullying others. We’ve also learned how to get involved and intervene to stop bullying and things others are doing to prevent it. Finally we’ve given you some additional resources and websites you can visit to learn more about bullying and bullying prevention.

So when it came time to end the series, the question was, how do we end it appropriately? It seemed technology was ever present in bullying, and we were using technology to deliver this message, so technology seemed an appropriate topic to end on.

It’s often hard to even keep up with technology. The terminology even changes frequently… Internet safety, cyber safety, tech safety, digital safety. Kids’ lives include so much technology such as the Internet, cell phones, gaming sites and consoles and more. Sadly, for most adults, our children are far better educated about technology than we are. It feels as though we almost have to become an IT expert to know how to keep up with up with it all. Or we could find and befriend an IT expert or Apple Genius. Either way, adults need to become educated and empowered because the other people who are as educated as our children are the predators.

But looking at this another way, the other benefit we see to adults becoming educated and empowered regarding digital abuse and digital safety is how society would then be able to turn around and use technology for great things, to change the tide and go against predators and offenders. What a great day that would be. Kids could make prevention PSAs and videos and adults could come together to support children. Schools and communities could stand together and make prevention videos and use them as teaching tools; the media could actually present stories of hope, helping one another and reaching out for good causes rather just the doom and gloom we usually see.

One recent example of using technology to do good, a video from a news anchor in Wisconsin that has gone viral. In it, she replies to a viewer’s email she received about her weight, challenging him and also using the opportunity to support others who don’t feel good about themselves and who are being bullied. It’s a great example of technology being used for a great cause. It’s time to see more examples of both adults and children using technology to support others and spread good messages rather than people using technology to do bad or hurtful things. It’s time we all work together to use technology for good. It’s time we all write our own story about how we can get involved and do better. Thank you for joining us for our bullying series, we hope it was educational and helpful.

A final note – October is National Bullying Prevention month and we challenge you to get involved. Here is a calendar with  ideas listed each day (both large and small) of things you can do to stop and prevent bullying. We challenge you to pick at least one thing a week and do it – even better if you do several a week – to help stop and prevent bullying in your own school or community! Come back and tell us what you did, or post on our Facebook page. We’d love to hear from you.

Florida Schools Have the Opportunity to Help Keep Kids Safe with Speak Up Be Safe™ Program!

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Internet sex sting operations are nothing new. Yet again, there was another news story recently and sadly one of the arrests was a 5^th grade teacher at Lawton Chiles Elementary School in Orlando.  While there is no report that this teacher ever harmed a child at that school, this type of report always raises a concern about sexually abusive behavior for parents and school personnel.

So the question then becomes what do we do to make sure our kids are safe at school? All Florida elementary schools, including Orange County Schools, have a prevention program available to them at no cost that may help prevent the sexual abuse and exploitation of children.

Speak Up Be Safe™ (SUBS) is a national bullying and child abuse prevention program that teaches kids what is safe and unsafe behavior.  The program also teaches kids to use the 5 SUBS Safety Rules which include:

1)    It’s my body

2)    Ask an adult if I’m safe

3)    I have choices

4)    Tell Someone

5)    It’s never my fault.

Additionally, facilitators (generally guidance counselors) are trained in topics such as:

·      Child abuse indicators

·      Recognizing signs of sexual abuse, exploitation and grooming behaviors

·      Mandatory reporting

·      Bullying, Cyberbullying and digital abuse

and they are given tools and resources to further educate their school peers and personnel as well as parents.  Using the knowledge gained in their training and the resources they are given, school personnel are informed and empowered and would hopefully recognize any attempt by a teacher or other adult to sexually exploit or abuse a child. Children, armed with the information provided in the curriculum, would also hopefully recognize unsafe behaviors by an adult and would rely on the 5 SUBS safety rules to have the adults in their lives help them be safe!

For additional training or for middle and high schools where SUBS is not available, another safety program exists. You can find more information here.  Together, the Monique Burr Foundation for Children, Inc., and Florida’s schools, can protect Florida’s children now! Visit our website to learn more or to get SUBS into your school district.