Helping Combat Bullying in Different Ways

Like a puzzle in which every piece works to make a complete entity, people are working individually and collectively to create positive school climates so that no child has to fear being bullied or mistreated. Several people who are working to curtail bullying in different ways came together recently at a conference sponsored by a special initiative of the University of Georgia that focuses on bullying.

UGA’s Safe and Welcoming Schools, which sponsored the second annual conference, aims to enhance knowledge and understanding of practices that contribute to a positive school climate through outreach, engagement and research, according to its website.  Led by Dr. Katherine Raczynski, the  director of Safe and Welcoming Schools, the conference focused on “Using Free and Low-Cost Resources to Prevent and Respond to Bullying” at UGA’s Gwinnett Center in Lawrenceville in metro Atlanta.  The conference featured researchers and practitioners from the fields of education, counseling, law and public health, who provided information on using resources including websites, videos, books and surveys.  Participants took part in hands-on demonstrations of how to use each resource. They also received a flash drive of the resources to use in their own bullying prevention and intervention efforts.

In addition to holding a conference each year, Safe and Welcoming Schools also collaborates with schools and community members to prevent bullying and mistreatment and to foster positive school climates. According to the project’s website, faculty members who have expertise in adolescent development, school climate, school engagement and bullying prevention provide continuing education to raise awareness of bullying and how to prevent it. Safe and Welcoming Schools also partners in the adoption of evidence-based practices related to improving school climate, and it provides technical assistance, such as support with measuring the extent of bullying in schools and in the community.

One person who attended the UGA conference is helping to curb bullying through personal experience. As a teenager, Sumi Mukherjee was a victim of bullying. In his book, A Life Interrupted: The Story of My Battle with Bullying and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Mukherjee tells his experiences with long-term bullying and how it led to the development of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder when he was sixteen. Since publishing his book in 2011, Mukherjee has spoken about bullying prevention to hundreds of people throughout the country, focusing on its long-term psychological effects. His father, Bimal Mukherjee, retired and now works with his son to present his message to parents, teachers, school social workers and mental health staff. Although Mukherjee wasn’t one of the presenters at the conference, he talked about his experiences and his book at lunch.

Another individual who is working to curtail bullying and who spoke at the conference is Emily Bazelon, the author of Sticks and Stones: Defeating the Culture of Bullying and Rediscovering the Power of Character and Empathy. Published in February, her book explores different facets of bullying through the stories of three young people who were bullied. It also tells about schools that have reduced bullying and examines their successful strategies. In a telephone interview, both Mukherjee and his father said they appreciated Ms. Bazelon’s discussion about the long-term psychological effects of bullying.

“A lot of good information came out at the conference,” Mukherjee said. “People acknowledged that we won’t stop bullying, but if we can all do a little, we can do a lot.”

If you would like your school district’s efforts to stop bullying to be featured in a future article, please contact smcarthur at schoolrisk dot org