Bullying has become one of
the most talked about subjects in and about schools throughout the US, and it
should be. If you’ve been following our blog, you’ve read the statistics and
stories and you know what a problem bullying has become.
According to Kidpower:
·
160,000 kids
stay home from school each day because they are bullied;
·
83% of bullying
incidents receive no intervention and continue to happen;
·
Only half of
educators have received training on how to handle bullying situations.
Consider the consequences of
those statistics in schools. Millions of students each year are victimized, yet
educators are not being taught how to deal with such behavior and the outcomes
are often tragic.
In San Antonio, a
kindergarten teacher unprepared to handle such situations dealt with a child
that she labeled a bully in a most egregious way. She had every other student
in the class hit the child she considered the bully (some more than once, and
many against their wishes) to teach him a lesson. Worse still, the event went
unreported by the children – and another teacher who witnessed the incident – for
two weeks. You can read the entire story and the district’s response here.
It is likely that education
and awareness could have prevented this incident from ever happening; and, had
it not, it is probable based on recent research that someone would have then told
a safe adult what had happened that same day.
A 2010 Campbell Systematic Review of School-Based
Bullying Prevention Programs showed
that many school prevention programs are effective at both reducing bullying
and changing the overall school climate.
The Monique Burr Foundation
for Children’s program, Speak Up Be Safe™, is a national bullying and child
abuse prevention program currently available to all Florida elementary schools in
an effort to help 1st through 5th grade students learn to
prevent and better manage bullying and to help school administrators and
personnel learn to manage and minimize the consequences of bullying. Although
Speak Up Be Safe™ (SUBS) was too new to be included in this evaluation, it
includes many of the same components that led to the favorable review of other
programs. Thus, when used in schools, SUBS will also educate both students and
school personnel on more effective ways to deal with bullying behavior – and it
is available to all Florida schools, at no cost, NOW.
For more information on SUBS
and how to receive training or implement the program, please visit our website.
Written by Guest Blogger Stacy Pendarvis, MSW, MA of Pendarvis Consulting & Training and former Program Manager for MBF with over 16 years in the child safety and child abuse prevention field.
Written by Guest Blogger Stacy Pendarvis, MSW, MA of Pendarvis Consulting & Training and former Program Manager for MBF with over 16 years in the child safety and child abuse prevention field.
