The “Anti-Bullying Campaign” programme draws on research from around the world so it is solidly evidence based. It was initially inspired, supported and encouraged and is now endorsed by Professor Mona O’Moore, who is recognised internationally as a leading authority on the issue of school bullying and was the founder and director of Ireland's first Anti Bullying Centre (ABC) in Trinity College, Dublin, in 1996. As well as this hugely important child-centred and resolution-focused initiative Professor O'Moore has published many authoritative books and articles on the issue of bullying in schools, how it impacts children and how to deal with it using a whole school community approach (to which we wholeheartedly subscribe) as well as the excellent "Silent Witnesses" DVD and workbook for Post-Primary (High) Schools, which forms part of our awareness-raising programme.
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For our current email address (and other useful information) please check out our noticeboard page.
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This website provides the tools and resources in English and Irish (so far) to implement a successful Anti-Bullying Campaign programme in any Primary (Elementary) or Post-Primary (High) school. Using these resources children are empowered to Recognise, Reject and Report bullying behaviour and teachers are enabled to Resolve bullying situations quickly, facilitating the restoration of normal relationships as soon as possible.
If someone is deliberately, repeatedly doing or saying things to you that you find hurtful, upsetting, annoying, worrying, frustrating, embarrassing or humiliating or even frightening you are being bullied. If you are being bullied in school, or if you know of someone else who is being bullied, please take the vital first step of telling a teacher you trust or asking a parent or a school friend to do so for you. Bullying can be brought to an end without making matters worse for you or anyone being bullied if the bullying situation is dealt with properly. For this to happen, you need to take that vital first step. When you do, please also tell the teacher about our website, which can help her/him to deal with your problem effectively.
If you are concerned about a change in your child's general mood or behaviour, for example if s/he becomes uncharacteristically withdrawn, touchy, angry, demands more attention than usual or has a serious decline in school workrate, it may not be "just hormones." Your child may be experiencing bullying. To put your mind at ease, please contact the school and make teachers aware of your concerns. They can then investigate and if there is bullying taking place they can bring the bullying to an end without making matters worse for your child or anyone else. When you do this, please also tell the teachers about our website which can help them to deal with your problem effectively.
The awareness-raising classroom activities we present via this website are planned and arranged so that teachers, with minimum effort, can present them to class groups throughout the school year, increasing pupils' awareness about the nature and impact of bullying and reinforcing the message for observers that it is unacceptable and should be reported to adults. Such an ongoing awareness-raising programme is necessary so as to develop in the school a culture of the three "R"s - where bullying is Recognised, Rejected and Reported to teachers. One-off interventions or events, while valuable, cannot achieve this on their own. Some pupils (who, after all, are only children) may still bully others, perhaps without realising the link between their own behaviour and the bullying that, in principle, they reject. Conscious of this, we offer a method of discovering whether or not there is bullying taking place and, if there is, a humane way to make perpetrators aware of the harm they may be doing, inviting them to promise to stop this behaviour and encouraging them to keep that promise. Central to this is a "Reform, not Blame" approach, which, possibly for the first time, enables pupils to report bullying knowing that in doing so they are not "getting someone in trouble." This two-strand approach enables teachers to address the issue of bullying in schools in an appropriate manner and to resolve any bullying situations that arise by offering a “win-win” outcome to all those involved, whether perpetrator, targeted pupil or observer.
If you need someone to talk to you may wish to call Childline on:
"What ever you are going through, whether you think it is big or small, you don’t have to bottle it up. At Samaritans we offer confidential, non-judgemental support 24 hours a day.”
