I am excited about the theme of this year’s International Bullying Prevention Association’s Conference: Bullying and Intolerance: “From Risk to Resiliency.” This year’s conference will take place, appropriately, in the city of New Orleans.

Much media attention has been given to the problem of bullying and suicide. Yet when the media covers the sad death of a young person by suicide, they seldom mention that suicide is typically a multifaceted issue involving treatable mental health issues, and that help is available.  Members of the media can help us encourage help-seeking behavior and avoid contagion by following the NIMH guidelines for reporting on suicide.

Social norming theory posits that our messages to youth can norm positive or negative behavior. A positive social norming approach has been particularly effective in changing youth’s views that using alcohol or other drugs is a common behavior among their peers – which in turn leads to reduced alcohol and drug use among the youth population. Research is emerging that suggests that social norming strategies can have a positive effect in reducing bullying behavior among youth as well. (Craig and Perkins, 2011).

I have a particular interest in the concept of norming resiliency rather than cruel or destructive behavior with young people. While the research  indicates that there is a relationship between being bullied and experiencing thoughts of suicide, research also suggests that to prevent suicide among youth we need to norm strength-based messages and help-seeking behaviors. I hope we can get more bullying prevention advocates speaking to suicide prevention advocates so that we can all learn to spread messages of resiliency rather than despair around this important issue. There will be a thought provoking panel at the IBPA conference this year on Social Norming that I will be a part of along with Anne Collier and Larry Magid of ConnectSafely, and Mark LoMurray from the Sources of Strength Suicide Prevention Program. Sources of Strength is making a very real difference in many schools across the country by using strength-based messages and breaking down barriers to help-seeking behavior among youth. I hope you can join us in New Orleans Nov. 6-8th to learn more about Mark’s efforts and the importance of norming resiliency among our youth.

In order to truly understand cyber bullying, it is important to understand traditional bullying. Norwegian researcher Dan Olweus found three key components to bullying behavior. Bullying behavior is aggressive, repetitive, and power-based. In other words, the person being targeted has a hard time defending him or herself. In many ways cyber bullying fits this definition. Certainly the behavior is aggressive in nature, designed to hurt the other person’s feelings or relationship with others, or even to frighten him or her. Cyber Bullying is usually repetitive, or by it’s very nature it can be viewed multiple times by the person who is targeted digitally. Granted a one-time nasty text message may not fit the definition of bullying behavior. But is cyber bullying power-based?

Ask those who are targeted by cyber bullying and they will often tell you that they have a hard time defending themselves because a humiliating message has spread and been viewed by many individuals. Sometimes the targeted individual is not sure who posted particular comments or set up a fake profile, so not knowing who their abuser is can also lead to a sense of powerlessness.
But there are also some unique features that we need to be aware of in regards to cyber bullying. In traditional bullying the identity of the perpetrator is usually known. We also deal with the phenomenon of disinhibition, where people say or do things online that they wouldn’t normally do because they feel invisible. Yet the data is not suggesting that we have a larger population of youth engaging in cyber bullying because of the disinhibition or the ability to be anonymous. However the research does suggest that a majority of youth who are cyber bullied are also experienced traditional bullying. In many instances the digital representation of bullying is making obvious the problems youth are experiencing in their relationships that may have been invisible in previous years. But the ability for an abuser to have a vast audience and for their digital abuse to intensify the pervasiveness of an experience of bullying is a significant issue and one that must be addressed in efforts at bullying prevention. I will be speaking about whole school approaches to address cyber bullying at the Celebration of Teaching and Learning Conference panel on cyber bullying March 19th in New York City. A blog that I wrote on the topic of “whole school approaches” can be found here.

Parents and educators often have a difficult time finding the report abuse link on Facebook. I have had a number of calls recently from adults trying to help young teens remove embarrassing photos that other individuals have posted of them on Facebook. In the last two instances the adult needed to find the link to report abuse, but didn’t know where to locate it. This can be particularly challenging for adults who do not use Facebook regularly. So I think we need to post a quick link on our home page. This link is also included on our handout , “Tips for Reporting Offensive Content on Social Networking Sites,” under the resources section of our website.

Educators need to keep in mind that sometimes the most helpful thing they can do is provide resources to parents and students about removing abusive content.  The following is a direct link to report abuse on Facebook.  I hope you never need it!

http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=report_tos_violation

And I encourage all adults to remind youth that social networking sites have “terms of use” that we agree to follow in order to enjoy socializing on such sites.  Discussing these terms of use with new users is an important lesson on digital citizenship.  The folks at ConnectSafely have developed a great guide for parents entitled, “A Parent’s Guide to Facebook”.  You can download a copy free from their website.

The International Bullying Prevention Association’s Conference in Seattle once again provided excellent sessions and resources to address bullying in schools and online. This year’s conference had a special focus on cyber bullying with a day-long panel series on the issue as part of the pre-conference.  Nancy Willard of the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use did an excellent job organizing the series of panels that were moderated by Larry Magid and Anne Collier, both of ConnectSafely.

Cyber bullying needs to be addressed from multiple perspectives and the panels helped bring researchers, school-based practitioners, youth involvement organizers, and law enforcement together to share their best ideas and strategies for addressing this complicated and multi-faceted issue. As the conference proceeded we learned more about the overlap between traditional and cyber bullying.

Dan Olweus reported that approximately 85 percent of the students who reported being cyber bullied on his surveys report being traditionally bullied as well. While there are some unique features to cyber bullying, it increasingly appears that cyber bullying is directly related to the school-based peer group. Thus taking a “whole school” approach to addressing cyber bullying makes a great deal of sense, recognizing that conversations in the classroom and at home need to adapt to reflect the fact that youth increasingly socialize online.  It also means that youth have to be a driving force in our prevention efforts since much of this socializing occurs without adult supervision.

Welcome to our newly revised CyberBullyHelp website!  We have updated our site to make accessing content easier.  As you can see, we have also added a blog feature and hope to update it on a weekly basis – or even more frequently!

There are two important conferences coming up that are generating a lot of interest, and both will have top-notch presenters on bullying and cyber bullying.  The first is the Family Online Safety Institute November 9-10 in Washington D.C.  I will be part of a panel on cyber bullying along with Elizabeth Englander of the Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Center, Will Gardner from Childnet International, and Jason Rzepka from MTV.  There are some amazing sessions scheduled over the two days and I am particularly interested in hearing about new research from David Finkelhor as well as updates from danah boyd’s fieldwork with teens and social media.

Also in November, the International Bullying Prevention Association’s 7^th Annual Conference, The Challenge and Promise of the Cyber World, Bullying Prevention in the Age of the Internet, takes place November 15–17 in Seattle, Washington.  Dr. Susan Limber and I will be presenting on Cyber Bullying:  Tools and Tips for Prevention.  I will also be part of a pre-conference panel on Cyber Bullying and Youth Risk Online that will be moderated by Anne Collier and Larry Magid of ConnectSafely.  I expect this panel to be groundbreaking in its breadth, because it will address youth risk online from a variety of perspectives.  I hope you can make it to one or both of these exciting conferences, or read about them on this blog in a future post.

Best,

Patti Agatston

CyberBullyHelp