Blog

Back 2 skool

For so many young people, the summer holidays are about getting a break from the stress and abuse of being bullied by their peers. Can you imagine the anxiety of going back into an environment where you're going to get a really hard time? How would you feel as an adult, going into your workplace on Monday morning, knowing full well you're about to be the victim of someone's tortuous plan? (This happens to many in the workplace of course, but as adults, we're better equipped to deal with it).

It's so important for parents and teachers to be vigilant at this time of year. Be proactive - signs and symptoms of bullying are easy to spot it's what you do about it that's important. Don't stand by or ignore what you're observing...engage with the young person concerned. The fact that a child is moody or withdrawn may be nothing to do with bullying, but there's a good chance it is.

As parents, you can expect your child's school to have a duty of care towards them - schools are legally obliged to ensure your child's safety and if they are failing to protect them, you can do something about it.

If you need help as a parent or a child, or just as an interested or concerned professional, visit beatbullying.org - we're here to help you.

The value of giving young people a chance

Last week, an International study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development found that although youth unemployment levels in the UK are down, it has become increasingly difficult for young people leaving school with fewer qualifications to find jobs.

Yes, there are more opportunities being created in the high-skills sector, while unskilled jobs are in decline, but for a significant proportion of young people, there is a clear danger that they will be left without the opportunity to work or the access to training they need to find work.  With so much focus on academia, we are in danger of marginalising further an important group of the next generation.

Both political parties are advocating Apprenticeship schemes and well they might.  I look around Beatbullying’s offices and there are a lot of young people.  We currently have 4 students doing work experience, another young man enhancing his graphic design skills on a work placement, and an apprentice delivering Beatbullying’s work into schools and communities.  And not for one minute can we underestimate the value they bring to the organisation, both in terms of ideas, enthusiasm and energy, as well as in actual output.

None of these young people don’t want to learn or don’t want a job.  They want to get on in life.  What they lack is the opportunity.  Apprenticeships can fill that gap.  They have long provided fantastic opportunities for young people traditionally wanting to learn a trade,  but now’s the time to expand these schemes into other sectors, and Beatbullying offers BB Apprenticeships in its range of employment opportunities.

BB Apprenticeships are a way for young people to earn a wage whilst learning about working with young people, working for a charity, studying for qualifications and generally starting to get to know the world of work.  They are high quality training programmes for young adults aged 16-19, who want to develop their prospects and career in the charity sector, take some responsibility, learn and have some fun.

Qualifications are important, and in some areas of employment absolutely crucial, but there is some often undervalued merit in giving young people a chance to learn skills and learn a job, while they are actually doing it.  Come to think of it, I’ve learnt more about working in Communications, and about working life in general, in the past two years, by actually doing it and seeing others do it, than I ever gained from any qualifications. 

For more information on BB Apprenticeships, look here: http://www.beatbullying.org/docs/home/apprenticeships.html

Collective responsibility

On Wednesday last week, the High Court in Seoul ruled in favour of a man who sued four major Internet portals for failure to delete postings that defamed his character. Essentially the lawsuit emanated from an original posting alleging the man caused his pregnant partner to commit suicide by instigating the breakup of their relationship. The posting was extended across various internet portals attracting thousands of further defamatory comments culminating with his personal details published online. The man was forced to leave his job and move home.

The nub of the Seoul ruling asserted that the portals were responsible for placing the postings in prime locations and at the same time allowed the use of their search engines to further propagate defamation. As such, the court ruled that “Internet portals should decide whether the contents of a posting defames a person's character and should either delete or block access to those postings if they do, even if the person being targeted does not request that they be deleted.”

The Seoul case comes on the back of several others highlighting the difficulties of inherent in social networking and associated technologies and is of particular concern where young people are involved. A Missouri woman pleaded not guilty a few weeks ago to charges relating to an web hoax that led to the suicide of a 13 year old girl. A boy in Brighton was given community service after admitting to homophobically defaming a “friend” through Bebo, which resulted in a failed suicide attempt. There are countless other cases coming to light.

As in the Seoul case, often the dominant view is that portals and websites need to take responsibility for the information posted on their sites. If the sites concerned are moderating comments and postings, this is possible to achieve given intelligent and responsible moderation, but nigh on impossible if no moderation is taking place.

We do need effective, toothful laws governing online conduct. We do need forcible safeguards. But rather than getting hysterical and distracted by the roles and responsibilities of the providers and portals, should we not instead be concentrating on our collective responsibility to our young people and to each other? We have a duty as a society to set good role models for our young citizens, to provide them with a positive experience online and crucially, to help them help each other.

Online environments do foster and harbour bullying, harassing, malign and malevolent behaviours, but so do offline environments. Just as we put measures in place in the real world to prevent and mitigate these behaviours, so must we introduce measures online to prevent such conduct in the first instance. And who are the best people to set down web etiquettes and codes for young people? Other young people.

Imagine the impact of an army of well-trained young people on the next net generation and how they might put to shame their flaming, spamming, abusive, craven, contemptuous bullying forbears.

Sources:
The Argus | USAToday | MSNBC | Digital Chosunilbo

~Sarah Dyer - Beatbullying's Creative Director

State of London Debate - New opportunities for young Londoners (Review)

Last week, (June 25th) myself and a number of colleagues attended the State of London Debate held at Central Hall, Westminster. The crux of the agenda was concerned with increasing opportunities for Young Londoners.

The debate was chaired by Jennette Arnold and the panel of speakers included the newly appointed Mayor of London Boris Johnson, Ray Lewis who has been appointed to lead the policy strategy to meet the Mayor’s Manifesto with respect to the issues facing young people, Munira Mirza who similarly has been appointed to lead the policy strategy for Arts and Culture, and Ross Kemp actor and documentary author who is considered to be influential in the area of gangs and gang culture.

As pointed out by a fellow compatriot it was deeply concerning not to see a young person on the panel of speakers, as to truly tackle the issues facing young people and to successfully promote opportunities for young people it is intrinsically important for young people to be consulted on policy matters. Hence, young people become involved in the formation of policy appropriate to them. This is key strand of empowerment and also directly aligned to the ethos here at Beatbullying.

The debate commenced with the view that the vast majority of children and young people are participating in positive initiatives and are largely law abiding. In addition to this, it is a very small minority who are involved in crime, which is unfortunately focused on and exacerbated by the media portraying a negative image of all young people, which in turn arguably impacts on the behaviours of young people. Both my personal and professional opinion champions this view and I further proclaim that the many positives associated with young people should be accentuated. 

There were a number of key undertones that continued to arise throughout the duration of the debate. Funding seemed to be a key issue with a number of organisations concerned with the levels of investment in programmes promoting positive opportunities. Furthermore I certainly advocate Ross Kemp’s comments on peer to peer mentoring as a solution in tackling child on child violence. The key strategy for decision makers is to target the root of the problem at the bottom of the pyramid as well as the policy and legislation at the top of the pyramid. Bullying was also a key undertone of the debate and is arguably the root of the issues discussed above. Moreover bullying is detrimental to the life chances of children and young people and a key concern for young people as demonstrated at the debate by young people themselves. It is therefore imperative for key decision makers to pledge significant contribution to bullying prevention and roll out a proven prevention model throughout London to combat child on child violence issues.

We heard a number of emotive statements from people who have directly felt the effects and consequences of child on child violence, which was terribly sad. 

The most inspiring aspect of the event was the number of children and young people demonstrating excellent public speaking skills and delivering comments that I can learn from as a young adult. I believe that this leads to an appropriate conclusion as young people’s ability to make a change is clearly evident and was evident on the night.

~Thaddaeus Douglas – Beatbullying’s Policy and Research Officer

Why Are We So Angry?

I was 16 when I very nearly became a stabbing victim. It was terrifying to be honest. It happened on a bright, warm and sunny Saturday late morning in 1986. I was at home with the family; mum. Dad, sister. Dad was cooking up a splendid brunch fry up. We had our front door open a little bit because our extractor fan packed in and mum and dad were concerned about the smell wafting through the house. I went upstairs to get something for my dad, immediately stumbling across a guy going in and out of our bedrooms....holding a large knife. He got angry, very angry and pushed me against a wall and pressed the tip of the blade into my stomach and continued to shout at me, saying if I moved an inch, he’d stick it in. I was stunned, frozen rigid, scared out of my wits. Not necessarily for my safety, but any member of my family who might come up and disturb him.

No sooner had he threatened me, than he legged it out of the house, knocking my sister over as he ran down the stairs. 

In 1993, 4 of us were victims of an unprovoked street attack because we were students. The classic student bashing syndrome! It was a deeply upsetting experience for us. It was a mob attack, ferocious, intense and quick. Hardly any time went by from first contact to knock down and unconsciousness. It was anger again. Envy and anger. Hate and anger. 

Why are we so angry? Why are young people so angry? Why is it that so much anger and frustration is expressed with violence perpetrated with extreme prejudice? There is a switch that has been pressed somewhere; conveniently, society attempts to construct arguments that it’s consumerism, glamorised gang culture, video games, violent films, the media or Big Brother to blame. Whatever is in our faces at that time, that’s to blame. Never do we look on the periphery, never into our own hearts, motivations, our own back yard. There’s little time and consideration afforded to one another. We drive and can’t bear someone getting ahead of us? We can’t let them out ahead of us, even though we are not in a rush or in any urgency to get somewhere and have the space to do this. We treat difference as if it’s a plague, a contagion that might ruin some warped sense of our own purity. It’s madness. Where’s the respect, the time we used to give each other to reminisce, laugh, cry, feel, express, just be decent, kind and caring human beings. It’s not just London, it’s all our towns, cities, communities that are suffering because somebody convinced us all that it’s somebody else to blame, something else that’s wrong. 

I think back to what happened to me on both occasions; it sends a chill down my spine. I’m a father to a young boy now, I talk to him, I tell him I care, I tell him I love him, that I love his mummy, that I love both sets of grandparents, that I love what I do.....he babbles back to me, but he smiles. He knows I care. It starts somewhere people, it must start here. This is a cycle that we must break and not wait for someone else to break for us.

Bullied To Death

In the last two weeks, two deeply upsetting and tragic deaths have been reported in the media.  Sam Leeson, from Gloucestershire and aged just 13, hanged himself on 5 June 2008 after being bullied via the internet, while an inquest in Wales heard this week that Cherelle Ardle, also only 13, hanged herself with a school tie after being bullied at school.

These deaths serve as a tragic reminder of the devastating consequences of bullying, and yet, disturbingly and sadly, one wonders just how many young people in the UK are driven to contemplating taking their own lives because of bullying.  Beatbullying has been trying, unsuccessfully, to collate the number of suicides related to bullying using the Freedom of Information Act.  Both the Home Office and the Department of Health have refused to provide any information or declared that it is unobtainable.  I have also written personally to every court of coroners in the UK to ask if they had any information or whether we could investigate, and from the few that replied, the resounding answer was, unsurprisingly, no.

It would appear that the Government is not recording, or will not tell us, why these young people are being driven to commit suicide.  So Beatbullying conducted our own research.  Last year, we questioned 1,769 young people aged 11-16, and 60% told us that they had been bullied.  Of those being bullied, 12% had self harmed and 9% reported having suicidal thoughts. These were shocking findings, and ones that we need to act on.  I cannot imagine the hell a young person must be going through to consider taking their own life, and whilst there might be various factors that can lead to suicide, bullying is clearly one of them.  Unrecognised officially, Beatbullying estimates that every year in the UK, over 30 young people commit suicide because they are being bullied.

Child suicide is a terrible thing for any family and community to deal with, and we must look at why young people consider it and work with them to stop others from doing the same.  One way in which we can definitely reduce the number of incidents is to prevent bullying.  We need to tackle bullying where it happens and support those that are being bullied, but most importantly, we need to implement measures to prevent it from happening in the first place. Beatbullying runs bullying prevention programmes in schools and communities, which are proven to reduce bullying by an average of 40%.

Beatbullying calculate that it costs just £4 per child per year, to run proven bullying prevention schemes in every school, for every child, and yet bullying prevention is still not at the forefront of Government considerations. However, at the launch of the Children’s Plan in April 2008, Kevin Brennan announced funding for all Local Authorities to put in place mechanisms for reviewing child deaths, and, as I understand it, the Department of Health will now record “suicide because of bullying” as a category pertaining to explainable deaths.  Bullying must be listed as a cause of suicide in the child death review process, as only then will the true extent of this tragedy become clear.  Faced with inescapable truths, we might finally realise the importance and necessity of making bullying prevention work available to every child in this country.

Don’t Incarcerate, Educate

Tomorrow the four children’s commissioners for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will be presenting a report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. The report concludes that although there has been progress made since the last UN review in 2002, there are areas that are worsening.

One of the most serious issues stated in the report is Youth Justice and how we tackle youth behaviour. With the Government announcing plans to automatically prosecute young people for carrying knives, young people from the age of 10 could see themselves charged in the category of ‘excluded offences’ which also include kidnap, arson, poisoning and causing death by dangerous driving. Are we in danger of painting a negative picture of the youth of today? Surely this will only makes things worse?

We have been criminalising and alienating our youth for too long, creating a vicious circle of re-offending and fear. This isn’t helped by the media discriminating against a whole generation for the crimes of a small minority of young people. How can we expect the attitudes that young people have towards each other to change, if we as a society do not change our attitudes towards young people? We are pushing our children to the edge when we should be helping them.

What we need is a more integrated approach, working with whole communities, offering young people support, interest and activity, rather than hostility and inconsistency. While measures to tackle such issues are always welcomed, we need to look at prevention and working with young people to stop them from offending in the first place.

We need to stop victimisation of our children by society, the media and especially in schools, where the biggest concern among young people is bullying. 

Children have the right to have their views respected and to have their best interests considered at all times. Let’s not forget all of those fantastic young people working to tackle issues that affect them day in, day out, as well as focusing on their education. Mentoring schemes like Beatbullying’s Peer mentoring model are proven to work at reducing conflict and violent behaviour, so why are these schemes not available in every school in the country? 

Education is the key to social change. We have the will to make that change, all it takes is a bit funding where it matters and in turn we can start to change the lives of the 11 million young people in the UK for the better.

Education is key to tackling knife crime

The number of teenagers stabbed to death in the UK this year is almost 30 and rising weekly, while incidents of shootings and serious child on child violence are reported widely across all media.  This week, the Home Office launched an explicit campaign to tackle knife crime, following from announcements on stop and searches, and metal detectors in public places, including schools.  The Government wants to be seen as one that is acting swiftly and assertively, but are these measures going to have the desired effect? 

Unfortunately, it would appear as though the prevailing attitude coming from Government is one of incoherent fire-fighting. Hard-hitting viral campaigns, metal detectors in schools, and tougher punishments for carrying weapons, are all decent strategies which will hopefully have an immediate impact on violent youth behaviour, but they smack of prescriptive, stop-gap responses, and I'm not convinced they're enough.

Now, I welcome any new measure aimed at protecting young people, and I agree that we must deter young people from carrying weapons.  But, in order to change the culture of fear and violence amongst our youth, we have to address the root causes of conflict and violent behaviour in the first place. 

The problem of child on child violence is linked to education and how a young person is brought up.  What we are seeing is young people using violence, fear and exclusion to intimidate and threaten others.  It's been widely reported that most of those carrying weapons today are doing it out of fear, not intent. It is bullying in its most extreme form. 

This is clearly not a problem that will be solved overnight.  We have no idea what impact the stop and search strategy will have, nor the £3million anti-knife campaign, but each is likely to have a limited effect if we don't back them up with a comprehensive education strategy.  It's not just a school's responsibility though, parents, professionals, and everyone in the community must realise that they have a role to play, and a duty, to prevent further needless violence.

What we need is a joined up, coherent strategy to educate our young people in conflict resolution, anti-violence and anti-bullying behaviour.  Intervene early against bullying and we can affect the growing culture of knife crime and gang related behaviour.  It’s time to look beyond trying to patch up a problem with disjointed, prescriptive acts, and deliver a preventative solution to benefit every young person, and society as a whole, so that we do not fail the next generation.

For a more detailed response, read Emma-Jane's statement here.

Cyberbullying.not.new.org

CyberBullying is to bullying as Skype is to the telephone. In essences they are the digitalised extension of an offline form which society is very familiar with.

Neither is new, but both have different online capabilities.

Cyberbullying is the use of technologies (e.g Internet, mobile text messaging, IM) to intimidate, scare, harass and threaten.

In many ways Cyberbullying has greater adverse effects then offline bullying because the torture endured does not stop at the end of the school day, nor stop at the young person’s front door. Cyberbullies have the ability to attack 24/7 and invade private spaces that were otherwise deemed safe. Cyberbullies can text mobile phones, leave messages on social network profiles, take over identities and cause greater humiliation by reaching a much larger, global audience then ever before. They can post embarrassing pictures for everyone to see with a click of a button and with the perceived anonymity to do so.

Peer Mentoring –Beatbullyings proven bullying prevention model works. CyberMentoring is Peer Mentorings online sister. CyberMentoring works with the same principles of peer activism and social change. 

CyberMentoring is the digital extension to Beatbullyings prevention model and one of the answers to beat Cyberbullying.

CyberMentoring works with Beatbullyings trained army of young people to change social behaviours on bullying and cyberbullying. BeatBullying CyberMentors and together with the help of Beatbullying partners will change behaviour towards cyberbullying. CyberMentors can do this by supporting their peers at school and in the wider community. New Technology is embraced and utilised to make full impact.

It works like this:-

Young person experiencing bullying contacts their school CyberMentor

Young CyberMentor – providing advice and referrals (and support to each other) for young people who identify themselves as needing help (the characters below identify CyberMentors on social networking sites or they can get help through the central CyberMentors website)

CyberMentor Volunteers – the first referral point for young CyberMentors who feel they need support, to share their experiences or go to for help

Trained E-Counsellors – qualified counsellors for the more challenging issues identified by young CyberMentors and volunteers

Law & ISP’s – Illegal and serious issues around online behaviour are referred to the appropriate body

Young people are only part of the CyberMentors Programme. Every CyberMentor has a point of contact back at CyberMentors HQ. There are fully trained professional counsellors who will be available exclusively to the CyberMentors 24/7 both on-line and on the telephone.

Everyone has the right to take advantage and enjoy the benefits technology brings us. We are now part of a generation where there is no distinction between online and offline. Reality is reality and it’s all virturality.

We can’t assume the effects of cyberbullying are the same as bullying. Where it seems anonymity is secure, we see actions that take place that would otherwise not happen face to face.

CyberMentoring has the potential to help keep safe the millions of children and young people that use social networking, mobile and text messaging services.

Depressed about our children’s unhappiness

The Children’s Society published a public opinion poll this week as part of an inquiry that gives a sad, if not unsurprising, insight into the mental health, well being and happiness of the UK’s children.

Naturally, the opinion poll shows that most people are pretty concerned, with 91% thinking that children aren’t as happy today as they were when they were growing up. To some extent, that’s by the by, and debating whether young people have got it tougher, or face more pressures today, won’t get us anywhere. Regardless of the past, we know that a large number of young people today aren’t happy, and our priority must be to rectify that.

27% of the 8,000 young people surveyed said they ‘often feel depressed’.  But we need to know why they are unhappy in order to be able to do anything about it. In a separate Newsround survey, young people revealed the factors affecting their happiness: their looks, the influence of their peers, and bullying, which is more often that not linked to those first two factors.

In 2006/07, Beatbullying asked 1769 secondary aged pupils about their experiences of bullying and the effect it had on them. 60% of this group has been bullied, and of those, 33% had low self-esteem. Even more disturbingly, and 12% disclosed they had self harmed and 9% said they’d had suicidal thoughts.

But it’s not just secondary aged children. Over the last 3 years, Beatbullying has surveyed 2302 children aged 8-10. 56% said they’d been bullied, and 54% felt depressed as result.

The message is clear, and a little obvious. Bullying makes young people unhappy – it results in low confidence and low self-worth, and it causes depression in children. Bullying is linked to eating disorders and self harm, and tragically at least 16 young people take their own life each year as a result of bullying.

If a young person is unhappy, there might be a myriad of reasons for that, and bullying may well not be one of them. But it’s certainly one of the leading factors in the majority of cases. The Children’s Society’s poll shows that we as a nation are concerned and that we care about our children’s happiness, but now we must do something about it. We know the factors that cause childhood depression, and we know bullying is one of the key ones. So surely that’s a good place to start.

Reduce bullying and less children will be unhappy. Beatbullying’s work improves the self-confidence of young people, it promotes tolerance, respect and friendship, and it reduces tensions and conflicts that young people face. Reduce bullying and we can improve the childhood of millions of young people. That’s what we want, and that’s what Beatbullying can do.