Red Cross – Violence, Bullying and Abuse Prevention

Red Cross has the programs and tools to help you prevent violence and promote safe environments.

The Canadian Red Cross has been working to promote healthy relationships amongst individuals and schools since 1984. Our Respect Education programs have educated over 7 million Canadian children, youth and adults.

Links to all the information below can be found at the Red Cross website: http://www.redcross.ca/how-we-help/violence–bullying-and-abuse-prevention

What is bullying?

Bullying is a form of aggression where there is a power imbalance; the person doing the bullying has power over the person being victimized.

 The different types of bullying

• Physical bullying: using physical force or aggression against another person (e.g., hitting)
• Verbal bullying: using words to verbally attack someone (e.g., name-calling)
• Social/relational bullying: trying to hurt someone through excluding them, spreading rumours or ignoring them (e.g., gossiping)
• Cyberbullying: using electronic media to threaten, embarrass, intimidate, or exclude someone, or to damage their reputation (e.g., sending threatening text messages).
• The difference between bullying and harassment
• Bullying and harassment are similar, yet different:
• Harassment is similar to bullying because someone hurts another person through cruel, offensive and insulting behaviours
• Harassment is different from bullying in that it is a form of discrimination.

What is discrimination?

Discrimination is treating someone differently or poorly based on certain characteristics or differences. Bullying turns into harassment when the behaviour goes against Canada’s Human Rights Laws and focuses on treating people differently because of:

• Age
• Race (skin colour, facial features)
• Ethnicity (culture, where they live, how they live, how they dress)
• Religion (religious beliefs)
• Sex
• Sexual orientation (if they are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or heterosexual)
• Family status (if they are from a single parent family, adopted family, step family, foster family, non-biological gay or lesbian parent family)
• Marital status (if they are single, legally married, common-law spouse, widowed, or divorced)
• Physical and mental disability (if they have a mental illness, learning disability, use a wheelchair)

Bullying, cyberbullying and harassment jeopardize learning

• Canadian teachers ranked cyberbullying as their issue of highest concern out of six listed options—89 per cent said bullying and violence are serious problems in our public schools.1
• Victims of harassment report a loss of interest in school activities, more absenteeism, lower-quality schoolwork, lower grades, and more skipping/dropping classes, tardiness and truancy.2
• Young people who report lower academic achievement levels or negative feelings about the school environment are more likely to be involved in bullying.3
• 71 per cent of teachers say they usually intervene with bullying problems; but only 25 per cent of students say that teachers intervene.4
• Over half of bullied children do not report being bullied to a teacher.5

Statistics on bullying and harassment

• A 2010 research project studying 33 Toronto junior high and high schools reported that 49.5 per cent of students surveyed had been bullied online.6
• Between 4–12 per cent of boys and girls in grades 6 through 10 report having been bullied once a week or more.7
• For boys, bullying behaviour peaks in grade nine at 47 per cent, while it peaks for girls in grades six, eight and nine at 37 per cent.8
• In a 2007 survey of 13–15-year-olds, over 70 per cent reported having been bullied online and 44% reported having bullied someone at least once.9
• One in four students from grades seven to nine in an Alberta study reported experiencing cyberbullying.10
• Over 80 per cent of the time, bullying happens with peers around 11—and 57 per cent of the time, bullying stops within 10 seconds when a bystander steps in. 12

Trends in bullying and harassment

Since 2002, fighting behaviour has increased, especially in grades six to eight. As many as 18 per cent of boys and 8 per cent of girls report having been in four or more fights in the past year.13

Boys are more likely to experience direct forms of bullying (physical aggression) while girls experience more indirect forms of bullying including cyberbullying.14

Sexual harassment is higher for boys in grades six and seven, but higher for girls in grades nine and ten.15

For footnotes go to: http://www.redcross.ca/how-we-help/violence–bullying-and-abuse-preventi…

Types of cyberbullying

• Harassment – Repeatedly sending offensive, rude, and insulting messages.
• Denigration – Distributing information about someone else that is derogatory and untrue by posting it on a webpage, sending it through email or instant messaging, or posting or sending digitally altered photos of someone.
• Flaming – Online fighting using electronic messages with angry, vulgar language.
• Impersonation – Breaking into an email or social networking account and using that person’s online identity to send or post vicious or embarrassing material to/about others.
• Outing and Trickery – Sharing someone’s secrets or embarrassing information, or tricking someone into revealing secrets or embarrassing information and forwarding it to others.
• Cyber Stalking – Repeatedly sending messages that include threats of harm or are highly intimidating, or engaging in other online activities that make a person afraid for his or her safety (depending on the content of the message, it may be illegal).

How can educators help protect kids from cyberbullying?

• Before implementing prevention programs, schools need to assess the problem in their school by looking at gender and grade level trends, as well as the medium where most electronic aggression is occurring.
• Develop clear policies that address on- and off-campus acts that could have a substantial disruption on student learning or safety.
• Provide staff with training on preventing and responding to cyberbullying as well as encouraging positive digital citizenship.
• Dedicate class time to the topic of cyberbullying and positive digital citizenship, beginning at a young age. Download a pdf handout for students on Cyber Safety: Strategies for Online and Cell Phone Safety.
• Teach students about the safe use of social media, and how to monitor their online reputation.   
• Train student mentors to address school social issues.
• Partner with parents and community organizations to provide a consistent message about the responsible and ethical use of technology.
• Become familiar with the cyber world yourself.

Bullying can happen anywhere. Is your school prepared?

• Does your school promote respectful behaviour?
• Do you know how to respond to incidents of bullying and harassment?
• Do you know what the different types of bullying are?
• Do you know the difference between bullying and harassment?
• Do you know how often bullying happens in schools across Canada?
• Are you teaching students about cyber safety?
• Do you have clear policies and guidelines outlined to help adults intervene effectively with incidents of disrespectful behaviour including bullying and harassment?
• Are you talking about issues of bullying and harassment in classes and assemblies? Are you providing easily accessible, age-appropriate information?

Are you addressing the issue of children and youth as bystanders?

Beyond the Hurt helps your school or organization stop and prevent bullying

The Canadian Red Cross’ Beyond the Hurt program supports a school or organization-wide approach to preventing bullying and building empathy and respect.

Beyond the Hurt is based on the belief that all youth—those targeted, those who bully, and bystanders—have a critical role in preventing bullying.

Most people involved in the bullying dynamic are bystanders, silently watching from the sidelines. Beyond the Hurt gives youth and adults the tools to take a stand to stop bullying before it starts. It engages student leaders in facilitating bullying prevention workshops and modeling positive and respectful relationships to grade 6–12 students. Contact your local Red Cross to learn more about becoming a Training Partner!

Four-hour bullying prevention online course for adults

To learn more about bullying and how you can help provide a safe environment for children and youth, you can take the affordable, 4-hour online Beyond the Hurt course.

Bullying prevention workshop for youth

Red Cross Training Partners can deliver a three-hour Beyond the Hurt workshop to youth. Through this workshop, youth will understand:

• bullying, harassment and discrimination
• how youth can use their personal power to resolve and prevent these problems
• how to find and use resources to respond to bullying and harassment, including cyberbullying.

Bullying prevention Youth Facilitator training

Beyond the Hurt Youth Facilitator Training equips youth to deliver the Beyond the Hurt bullying prevention workshop to their younger counterparts and peers.

Schools that become Red Cross Training Partners can choose whether to become equipped to conduct their own Youth Facilitator Trainings, or whether to have Red Cross conduct Youth Facilitator Training for them.

Download the PDF of the activity “Healthy Relationships and Schools,” that helps you and your students examine how positive relationships can lead to a bullying-free, healthy school environment.

Bullying prevention facilitator training for adults

Red Cross Training Partners can also opt to have school personnel certified through Beyond the Hurt Prevention Educator Training for adults. These adult Prevention Educators can directly deliver the Beyond the Hurt bullying prevention workshop to youth aged 11 and up.

Download a pdf summarizing how Beyond the Hurt can be adapted to your school setting.

Contact your local Red Cross to learn more about becoming a Training Partner!

Beyond the Hurt and provincial/territorial curriculum outcomes

Not only does our program raise awareness around some of the more prominent issues around bullying, but it also corresponds directly with a number of the prescribed learning outcomes from the Ministries of Education.