Bullying - A set of purposeful physical and emotional "actions" that have the potential to cause long-term damage, are carried out repeatedly, are intended to injure and involve an imbalance of power.

Why Children are Victimized

• Social Status
• Special Needs
• Viewed as "different"
• Sexual identity

Anyone can be victimized!

Best Practices in Bullying Prevention

• Focus on the school climate and involve all stakeholders
• Assess bullying and share findings to gain "buy in"
• Increase supervision and incorporate bullying prevention in the curriculum
• Formulate rules, policies, advisory committees and training
• Be consistent with intervention and consequences
• Regularly evaluate progress

Strategies for preventing cyberbullyng that promote positive bystanders action:

• Report offensive profiles or online abuse to the site manger
• Tell an adult at home and school
• Print the evidence to share with an adult
• Don’t forward mean e-mails, IM’s or text messages
• Support the victim – post positive messages
• Ignore
• Print then Delete
• Save any e-mails, instant messaging or chat sessions, and download any blog, hate material and show an adult
• Look for the abuse policy on the website, typically under the FAQ’s section and links for reporting and blocking offensive profiles on facebook, myspace etc..
• SReview how to respond to mean text, photos and material to threaten, ridicule and isolate others. For example, they can simply write, “Don’t send this my parents check my email”.
• Remind kids that all virtual communication can be traced and exists in cyber space even when they think they deleted it.

What Students Say...

• One half of all students in the United States are bullied at some time during their school years.
• One in ten are bullied on a regular basis.
• U.S. students age 8 to 15 rank bullying as the biggest problem in their life.
• Loneliness, isolation, depression, and suicide are consequences of bullying.

American Medical Association

What Educators Say:

• 70% of educators were interested in receiving more professional development on bullying prevention
• 88% agreed that educators play a large role in bullying prevention
• 92% agreed that bullying is linked to bullying violence
• 64% agreed that bullying in their school negatively impacted academic achievement.

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Kevorkian, M. (2007). Nova Southeastern University