Category: bullying

Bullying in Scotland 2014 Reserch Survey Findings

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I have posted a brief summary of the results of a survey carried out earlier this year – I will be posting a lengthier blog in the not too distant future  discussing the findings in greater depth but for now at least – here is a quick snapshot of what children and young people told us

The research

The primary aim of this piece of research was to obtain a picture of how children and young people are experiencing bullying in Scotland in 2014.

This research was designed to:

·         Identify the types of bullying that is experienced by children and young people.

·         Give a clear picture of where bullying happens and where online and offline/face to face experiences differ or crossover.

·         Identify from children and young people’s own experience what they feel works and what is less helpful.

·         Identify where children and young people go online and what technology they use to get there.

 

An online questionnaire was designed and tested and distributed to all schools in Scotland in May and June 2014. In total, there were 8310 responses, of which 7839 were useable. Responses came from all over Scotland with all 32 Local Authorities represented. Respondents were aged between 8 and 19 years old. Sixty five per cent were 12 – 14 years old.

This was an open survey and the findings presented here represent only the views of the children who took part.

Three focus groups took place with 45 young people to get a more detailed insight into children and young people’s experiences of bullying – in particular, their thoughts on what happens online and in person, where these two are different and where they crossover.

Key findings

 

The key findings from the survey are as follows:

  • 30% of children and young people surveyed reported that they have experienced some sort of bullying behaviour between the start of school in August 2013 and June 2014. Of this 30%:

§  49% experienced bullying in person

§  41% experienced bullying both in person and online

§  10% experienced bullying online only.

 

  • A number of children and young people had more than one experience of bullying. Children and young people surveyed reflected 12,003 experiences of bullying behaviours. Of these experiences: –

§  60% took place in person

§  21% took place both in person and online

§  19% took place online only

 

  • 92% of children and young people who were bullied knew the person bullying them (91% online and 92% offline). Anonymity therefore may not be what is driving bullying online.

·         Behaviours such as name calling, hurtful comments and spreading rumours that make people feel angry, sad and upset happen both face to face and online.

·         Children and Young people employ a range of strategies to cope with bullying; some are more successful than others.

§  Almost half (48%) of children and young people who are bullied tell their parents.

§  Friends and teachers are also providing support to a high number of children and young people who are bullied.

·         The most successful anti-bullying interventions are embedded within a positive ethos and culture and don’t just focus on individual incidents.

  • Children and young people’s use of technology, especially mobile technology and social media, is woven into their everyday lives.
  • The majority of children and young people (81%) consider their online friends to be all or mostly the same friends they have in real life
  • Children and young people access internet content on mobile devices, such as phones and tablets, more than other devices such as  PC’s or laptops.
  • Google, YouTube, Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook are the most popular websites and Apps used by children and young people when they go online.

 

  Next Steps

 

We will further analyse the data we have collected and use it to help develop effective policy and practice around bullying. The data is likely to help us to address some questions more effectively including: –

·         Given the relatively low proportion of exclusively online bullying, and the similarity of online and offline bullying behaviour, to what extent is a specific response to online bullying needed?

·         What are the appropriate responses to gender specific differences in experiences of bullying?

·         How can we help schools to further develop an anti-bullying ethos? And how can we continue to ensure children and young people are involved and included in this process?

·         How can we continue to support parents to respond when their children tell them about being bullied?

·         How can schools further help children and young people learn from other pupils about the strategies that they have found useful?

 

Bullying and the ‘One-off incident’…

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One challenge we have faced on several occasions over the years is around perceptions of what a ‘one-off incident’ is and ‘can it be bullying?’

At respectme, we have always stated that behaviour does not need to be persistent for it to be bullying – even though typically bullying may be repetitive, this does not mean it always is or has to be.

It is unhelpful to think of bullying this way and narrows our focus.

The most common response to this approach is that, by our definition, every single one-off incident or argument between young people can now be considered as bullying, and teachers especially are going to have to record every little fall out or cross word that happens.

Saying that something can happen once and it can be bullying is not the same as saying everything that happens once is bullying.

 We never have and never will suggest that two children who fall out over something or who aren’t nice to each other are bullying.  It is reasonable to expect adults to deal with this low level, everyday behaviour by challenging it when they see it, and by role modelling the right way to behave – and there is certainly no need to record that you have done so. Bullying is different.

Bullying is a mixture of behaviour and impact – the impact on a person’s capacity to feel in control of themselves. This is what we term as their sense of ‘agency’. Bullying takes place in the context of relationships; it is behaviour that can make people feel hurt, threatened, frightened and left out.

Nowhere in this is it suggested that falling out or arguing with someone is bullying – children and young people will fall out, they will disagree on who and what is cool, they will bicker with each other and this is part and parcel of children being in social situations. People can argue without it being bullying.

A young person can be threatened and intimidated by other young people on a bus, leaving them feeling humiliated and embarrassed– This only needs to happen once to stop them from getting on that bus again, or being terrified at the thought of it, or re-living the experience and not being able to concentrate in class.

The threat of it happening again is very real; the likelihood of it happening again is also real if that’s the bus they need to get to get to school every day.  Regardless of whether it happened on the last day of school, when all of the people who took part were leaving for good, or whether it was the last time that bus ever ran, or whether the person being bullied is moving to another country the following morning and won’t see these people again, it is still bullying. The behaviour experienced sill stripped someone of their capacity for agency.

If I get humiliated and picked on when changing for PE one day, it could have lasting effects on my participation in it or enjoyment of it.  Do I really need an adult to not take it seriously or consider it bullying because it only happened once?

How do we apply this to behaviour that takes place online? One post seen or read by dozens can have a devastating impact – is it the number of ‘likes’ that make it repetitive? In the playground or on the bus, people can hear nasty and hateful things being said.  Would we consider a story being shared or gossip passed around as repetitive or persistent? It certainly can ensure the impact is greater.

Adults need to have the confidence to deal with behaviour when it happens. How often it happens might make it more serious; it could mean attempted interventions have not been successful and it now requires a more robust response.

Now, I know most adults are capable of responding in this way but I have seen first-hand and heard many times from children, parents and from some senior teachers, that because it only happened once, they couldn’t do anything – their anti-bullying policy said it needs to be repeated.

This very literal take on a policy document is in some ways understandable – that’s what many people do with polices.  The thing is for me, if you need people to apply judgment and discern (and you do) don’t give them a definition that is limiting or reductive. Let them consider what was the behaviour, what impact did it have and what do they need to do about it? It is what you do that matters.

When I ask young people if something that only happens once can be bullying – the overwhelming response is ‘of course it can’.

I have always struggled with the subjective nature of the word ‘persistence’ to be honest – does it simply mean more than once? More than once a week? Or does once a day make it persistent enough to deal with? And also, who decides? My teacher – who has not seen or heard every incident – or me, the person it is happening to? Also, how does my teacher know it is not persistent? They never saw what happened on the way into school or in my last class in another part of the building.

I do understand if people’s motivation to exclude ‘one-off incidents’ from bullying is due to recording and the time this will take up. If what you mean by ‘one-off incidents’ are low level, everyday interactions such as a fall out, an argument or a cross word, then I support that- but then you need to define what you mean by a ‘one–off incident’. Make sure there is a shared understanding of what you mean and what is expected of people as a result.

Your policy needs to be clear that when you say a ‘one-off incident’ that it is not bullying you are talking about but the low level stuff just described. Be clear that you are not excluding certain bullying behaviours because they only happened once.  

Make sure everyone understands repetition or persistence is not a criteria that is to be applied and used to determine if something is bullying or not. If there is not a shared understanding of this, then responses are less likely to be applied consistently and inconsistent responses form part of a culture where bullying is more likely to thrive.

Brian Donnelly

Do we really all have to be friends?

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The line that gave respectme its name has served us very well over the years and made for a very popular poster and video campaign – ‘You don’t have to like me, agree with me or play with me… but you do have to respect me’. The thinking behind this was the need for a way to describe how we wanted to help children and young people shape the terms for relationships and interactions with peers.

While this sounded quite catchy and lends itself well to a campaign – I always wanted to it have substance – and that is why we always follow this up by exploring what does this statement actually mean or what does it actually feel or look like for children and young people?

It is a nice demand to make of people I know but again, what does it mean. For the most part – it means simply leaving someone alone – you don’t need to connect with them, learn about them, understand them or become friends with them – just let them be.

The example I tend to use when discussing this, relates to an experience I had when my second oldest was at nursery. As reputations were being built and lost around the sandpit I heard the teacher tell the boys and girls who were playing and getting out of hand that ‘they should all be friends and play nicely’. This was of course said with warmth and with the best of intentions but at the time it really got me thinking – ‘’Do they all haveto be friends?’ how realistic an expectation is this?

Now, if a bunch of 4 year olds cannot behave around the sandpit we need to intervene and let them know how they should behave but do they all need to be friends? No – should they be expected to play near each other in a civilised way? Yes – perhaps a better response is along the lines of ‘if you are all going to play here together you need to be nicer to each other, no grabbing or shouting and you take turns – that’s one of the rules here’.

That is an easier boundary to set and easier to role model, if you tell them they need to be friends you are setting up an unrealistic expectation that they can’t possible manage – friends with everyone in your class? Are we as adults expected to be friends with everyone we work with? Do we even like everyone we are related to at times? Of course not.

I know for some this is not a huge issue but friendship is one of the first currencies children have to withhold or bargain with – it is a very powerful tool in early years and as such I think we can frame it more effectively. I would rather see a group of P1’s who can get along on different tasks, are respectful of each other and make friends on their terms. This also lets us talk about what it means to be a ‘good friend’ and help them understand that there will always be a wide group of people around them throughout school, some you’ll be friends with. Some you’ll know and say hello to and some you won’t get on with or agree with.

The skills needed to understand and negotiate this will serve them well in life not just school. Anti-bullying agencies get a bit of stick at times because the impression they give is that all they want is for everyone to be nice to each other and in fact this is unrealistic – I think it’s no bad thing to want everyone to be nicer but I agree that it’s not realistic.

What I do believe is that we should be asking children to respect their peers and that can mean a whole range of things. It can include talking and listening to someone and perhaps becoming friends, or it can mean fixing what was once a friendship or it can mean learning to be quiet and not shouting at or about someone you don’t like. I think friendships are vitally important to our children and young people – they rely on them, value them and as they get older, they turn to them for support and comfort – all this message and these campaigns seek to do is to help frame an understanding of what it really means to be friends.  

Learning that it is okay not to like someone, that it’s okay not to agree with them is important – it’s what you do that matters. Not being friends does not have to mean that you are enemies. That is a message I have seen young people benefit from exploring on many occasions.

If you think about it there must be a few people in your life you don’t like, you don’t and never will agree with – you don’t hound and abuse them at every opportunity – you may have learned the hard way that a family Christmas dinner is not the time to get these feelings off your chest. It might be a colleague or your boss – most people learn to use their developed social skills that enables them to work effectively or not fall out with the whole family.

If you pick on, exclude or verbally abuse someone in person or online you don’t like or agree with then that’s the kind of bullying that will cause problems for everyone – if you are able to let them walk by, be online or in the corridor without you responding in some negative way – then everyone will be a lot happier.

We will always respond to bullying more effectively when we focus on what someone actually did and the impact it had. If they behaved in a way that is unacceptable then we focus on their actions and what they should be doing in future.  This will be more effective than trying to fix or reframe a dynamic between two people that might not need ‘fixed’- nor will it ever fit into what we might think a ‘friendship’ is.

 

Brian

Gender is Everyone’s Agenda

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 I have copied my opening speech from this weeks ‘Gender is Everyone’s Agenda Conference – some more thought son this event to follow

The name of this conference was chosen very deliberately – gender is everyone’s agenda

 

This title emerged as we began exploring the challenges young people face and looking at the work being done by the range of agencies – many you will see today – just how much of their lives can be affected by gender inequality

 

We start of the games or the clothes boys or girls are expected to wear or are marketed at parents, to name calling bullying, insults, stereotypes, to threats and fear and abuse because they don’t conform to what is seen as normal behaviour, or they don’t do what is expected of girls when a boy asks you out or wants your picture, to feeling safe being out, to being targeted online, being exploited or abused witnessing and experiencing domestic violence or being attacked in the street..

 

This spectrum is where some of us sit – a lot of us found that we play a small part on this huge spectrum or behaviours or issues – but there is no one monopoly position on them – neither in policy or practice – all of these issues and many more are underpinned by gender inequality – they all adversely affect girls more than boys.  

 

Aggression and violence towards girls whether online, in school, in relationships is a complex phenomenon – not a new one either – the pressure to conform to norms or to be sexually active or to do what your friends tell you boys or girls are supposed to do – or are supposed to respond to if their girlfriend or boyfriend texts or speaks to another person are challenges we have been facing for years and at times we have tried to focus on each part of the spectrum of behaviours or looked at what the media does and then blamed that

 

When you look then at what each of us is doing on our small parts of the spectrum are doing – you ask – are they being consistent? Does it add up? It many places it does but many of us share the same frustrations at trying to get communities and schools and funders to look up and see the bigger picture.

 

We first became involved and were the catalyst for the partnership forming that brings you todays conference – based on our one area of influence – bullying

 

The term sexual bullying was being used more and more often and was appearing in policy and was being used to describe all manner of behaviours from homophobia to sexual assault – we felt this ran the risk of diluting serious behaviour – forcing someone, threatening to do something sexual they do not want to, isn’t bullying it abuse. Putting your hand u a girls skirt is not bullying – it is assault – these examples did and still do exist in policy in parts of the UK.

I as noticed a change when we were presenting evidence to the parliament on cyberbullying and after I spoke 5 other agencies spoke about exploitation and child abuse online – these are very very serious issues that need real policy and legislative focus – but we felt the term ‘cyberbullying’ was becoming an umbrella term for all negative and abusive behaviour online. I felt that if parliament is looking for evidence on exploitation and abuse online – we shouldn’t be in the room.

 

These two challenging issues converged and we decided it was time to talk to colleagues who were working on these very serious very relevant issues – we could learn from them about the areas they work in ad we could share what we did –so that we knew what children could expect from Childline, what Zero Tolerance was talking about in schools about relationships and violence and they knew what the anti-bullying messages were, what LGBT Youth Scotland say about domestic violence and violence that is routed in people not meeting gender norms – this vital and rich work being done runs the risk of being done in isolation

 

We wanted to get people together and look for where we can develop a consistent message – in policy and on practice. Every one of us was dealing with behaviour and violence migrating to the online world too but when we peel it all back and look at what we do – we are responding to gender inequality – pictures of girls being shared and commented on around school is misogyny 2014 – boys simply have new means at their disposal to perpetuate the myths about relationships, norms and how we talk about boys and how we talk about girls.

 

So ourselves, LGBT Youth Scotland, police Scotland, Local Authority colleagues, the Mentors for Violence Programme, NSPCC Scotland, Edinburgh University, Zero tolerance and Rape Crisis Scotland formed a partnership –

 

This group has formed in response to a shared concern and common interest in addressing gender-based inequalities and sexual violence.   It sets out a partnership approach to lead and influence gender-related policy and practice, as it relates to children and young people in Scotland.   It aims to challenge accepted behaviour, attitudes and relationships, with the purpose of reducing sexual violence amongst young people, acknowledging that the status quo is no longer good enough.

 

When each of us responds to reports or is delivering our area of work – we now know more about what our colleagues are doing and when we address gender issues – we have a broader and more informed position for some young people the link form say gender based bullying to gender based violence is clear for others less so but in understanding what each of us can do on that spectrum or for some continuum of aggression and violence we hope that we can develop more effective responses as we share our learning our understanding and listen to each other.

 

I am very proud to be standing here today opening this conference – I am very proud that it is not a conference about online risks, there are plenty of them happening, or a conference just on violence, or bullying – but one that hopefully gets straight to the point –  and that is how these are affected by gender inequality – I want us to get the conversation right – not always focussing on our own bits bit ask – how can we change attitudes and behaviours about gender

 

I suppose for me an example is when we look at what happens when sexting goes horribly wrong – a very important area – and we spend time on reflecting on social media sites, smart phones and the challenges they present – when the issue is actually what motivated the boy involved what told him what  he was doing was okay – not how did he did it or where – but why.

 

That is what I mean about getting the conversation right.

 

Today is our attempt to articulate the problem – to explore some of the key issues and to share these with you and to listen to what you have to say

 

We have avoided the temptation to present you with speakers all do and for you to sit there and appreciate – although I am sure you will appreciate the small number we have for you today – but we wanted it to be an active day – where the workshops and the networking are the focus – so please enjoy the variety on show – use the time at lunch and breaks to go round the various stalls and make connections.

 

Finally a quick thanks to Our Funders today from The Scottish Government – both The Learning  Directorate and the Equalities Unit  – thank you for this and we hope you can see that today has been money very well spent.

 

Brian Donnelly

Online Bullying – Evidence to Education and Cutlure Committe

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I have posted this briefing that was submitted ahead of the Education and Culture Committee Evidence Session on online bullying – it is an extended version of the briefing posted earlier on this blog 


The service provides strategic policy support, offers skills development training and campaigns to raise awareness. The service was externally evaluated between 2009 and 2011 and was found to be a ‘catalyst for change’ and was a ‘credible’ and ‘robust’ anti-bullying service. The service was instrumental in developing the National Approach to Anti-Bullying for Scotland’s Children and Young People and ensures all stakeholders operate in-step with this approach.
 

respectme’s resources and approach to anti-bullying is recognised internationally, we have delivered training and materials across Europe and the UK as well as the US. We work with all adults who play a role in Children’s lives – parents to policy makers and we have trained teachers, social care staff, foster carers, football coaches, residential workers and many people in many other roles.

Bullying is behaviour that makes people feel frightened, hurt, threatened and left out. It impacts on a person’s ability to feel in control of themselves (their ‘agency’) and to respond effectively. This behaviour can harm physically and emotionally and the threat is typically sustained. This behaviour takes place in a variety of places, including on-line.


Online bullying was an emerging issue when the service launched early 2007 and at the request of the then Minister, respectme delivered a campaign on cyberbullying that urged parents to ‘connect’ with what their children were doing on-line not ‘disconnect’ from the internet. We found that parents and adults who understood how social media worked, what it was used for and how to make it safe or monitor it, were much more confident when dealing with bullying that happened on-line.



Over the year’s respectme developed resources, web content and a very popular training event on cyberbullying. We were able to refine and develop confidence with our core messages about online bullying and communicate these to our stakeholders through newer campaigns and resources aimed at adults and at children and young people. Our learning has now seen us bring the core messages on online bullying into our generic anti-bullying training.


These key messages include:


Bullying online is all about relationships – not technology We must focus on equipping young people with the skills to conduct themselves online in a more respectful manner; the skills to manage these environments safely, and to develop their confidence and abilities to negotiate relationships and problems. This is built on promoting and developing resilience. But we also have to equip parents with the knowledge and understanding about how these sites work; how to make them safe and, most importantly, how to talk to their children about using them.



‘Cyberbullying’ is bullying – it is still about relationships that are not healthy or being managed or role modelled well. It is behaviour done by someone to someone else, it is the ‘where’ this is taking place that is new. The behaviour appears to be migrating, as children spend more time on-line, the behaviour they have always exhibited and experienced comes with them.



It is important to include cyberbullying in your policies and procedures on anti-bullying and not see it as something entirely separate – it is still rooted in relationships between people. Our work and international research supports our assertion that you deal effectively with bullying that happened online as part of your whole approach to bullying. Carving it off as something different dilutes the reality of bullying experienced by children and young people – this is that they can experience bullying online and in person simultaneously.


The internet is a place, not a thing – for many the internet is a tool that they use for a variety of things, buying, sending messages or research. To most children and young people it is a social space that they spend time in and use to stay in touch with their friends. This principle underpins all of our anti-bullying work in this area. This led to a very successful video campaign in 2011 called ‘She’s still going somewhere’, the message for adults was, whether your child is going into town or online, they are still going somewhere and you need to be just as interested and concerned about where they are going and who they are going with.


Like all places children and young people go to, there are risks.


 

 

 

 

Children and young people do not differentiate a great deal between friendships online and in person – most of their interactions on-line or using their smart phones is with friends and people they interact with in other areas such a schools or where they live. This is not to say they do not know the difference but it is ads natural for your friendships to be evident in both your day to life online and where you live or go to school.


Children and young people use this to communicate –the purpose of using smart phones, consoles or laptops is primarily about staying in-touch with friends, this is as important for young people today as it was 40 years ago. They have different means at their disposal but the principle is the same.



Adult fear and anxiety – has been the biggest hurdle in dealing with cyberbullying. This has had a very high media profile at times and it appears ’new’ and for parents or adults who do not use social media or connect with their friends using the internet, this is a challenging and at times bewildering experience. There are so many types of phones, connections and complex safety features and so on. That is why respectme’s training focusses on developing adult skills and confidence and their understanding of how and why technology is used this way.

We have developed a two and a half hour training session for parents that we will be piloting across the Central belt later this year. This session will involve some ‘hands-on’ experience on social networking sites and leaning about safety settings and how they work.



Lots of colleagues have said they are ‘technophobes’ or are not ‘tech savvy’ and have voiced how much they dislike Facebook or twitter. We have maintained that if you work with children and young people or are a parent or carer – that is no longer good enough. You need to know! For some that will require a real effort to spend time and utilise the relationship they have to learn this. We cannot abdicate responsibility for this to software. We need to connect and learn about how young people use the internet and the phones or laptops they access it from. They use it mainly to talk to and meet their friends.


Many adults have experience of managing risk when working with children and young people, this is a new place for us to consider. We need to be as imaginative and creative with the internet as we have been in other places.


respectme undertook extensive research on October 2011 on this issue that both confirmed our messages and informed the work we do.


This research involved 3,944 young people from 29 of Scotland’s 32 local authorities aged 8 – 19 years. It confirmed that children and young people are online almost every day. They use phones and laptops, boys also use games consoles to connect with friends and socialise. For the most part, the friends they talk to at school are also the friends they chat to on-line. They do not draw any difference between talking to a friend on the phone, instant messaging or on the way to school – it’s all talking to friends.



16% say they have been cyberbullied – this is reflective of the findings from colleagues in the rest of the UK. 25% worry about cyberbullying,




55% say they are online every day for 1 – 3 hours, nearly 10% claim they are on for 5 hrs. or more



63% of children bullied online knew the person who was doing this and 40% of the time this carried over into school. Children who had been bullied on-line stated that reading a nasty comment was worse that hearing it or knowing it had been said. Children who had not been bullied on-line were ambivalent about the difference in impact.

There is a real fear that anonymity is pushing this behaviour online – however there is little research to support this – what we do know is that believing they will no get caught and not fully understanding how permanent posting are online link to bullying and aggressive behaviours more than anonymity – many social network sites have a /name’ culture and most abusive behaviour online is not actually anonymous.

 

 

 

 

The impact of this behaviour is the same as the impact of other types of bullying, fear, anxiety and worry about repercussions. It is likely for many children and young people that if they are being bullied, say in school, it is highly likely they may also experience bullying behaviours online as well.



71% of children who were bullied would like to tell a parent or carer, 43% would tell a friend and 31% would want to tell a teacher.


This year will also see respectme undertake new research into children and young people’s experiences of bullying online and off. This research will enable us to help parents and professionals get a clear national picture of how young people are experiencing bullying in 2014. Crucially this will support and influence effective responses that recognise relationships play out on line and face to face more than ever.


 

 

Schools have struggled at times to deal with bullying that happens on-line as they believe it happens ‘out of school’, respectme’s take on this is that bullying happens to individuals, the impacts are felt by them and they take this with them wherever they go. If they tell their teacher something happened and they are worried, like any disclosure of this kind, teachers and schools must respond in a supportive way. Children will be telling a teacher for good reason; they believe they can help them.

  

Cyberbullying can be more intrusive and children and young people may find fewer ‘escape routes’ as switching off their phone is rarely an option. While messages can be blocked, deleted or reported, they can be seen by hundreds of others within minutes and incidents can spiral out of control very quickly. A comment made while angry to a friend can be seen and shared in no time at all.

 

 

respectme has develop very successful guidance for children and young people on bullying, staying safe and their own behaviour on-line as well as resource for adults. There is a need to help adults develop skills and confidence in this area though. There is still a gap between what they currently know and what they need to know about the platforms and devices children and young people use.

A new publication for parents and carers will also be delivered this year and this will cover anti-bullying advice including online bullying.



Brian Donnelly



Director respectme



February 2014