National Bully Prevention Campaign

Jason Smith: So, so far we've learned several things, and I want to make a point to identify at least three of them. We know that bullying behavior is prevalent: 30 percent involved, in some fashion. We know that the long-term effects for children who are bullied, or who bully, are significant and serious, and we ought to take it seriously. And we also know that to effectively reduce bullying in schools and elsewhere takes a comprehensive, long-term investment and program. Sometimes when I think about all of those things, I think, "So why are we doing a communications campaign? How is that going to solve the problem?" So I want to make it very clear from the outset that we understand what a communications campaign can and can't do. We're trying to raise awareness, and we're also trying to point people to programs, to materials, that can provide that comprehensive, incorporated-in-to-the-classroom and classroom activities, methodology for really addressing the issue of the children who bully, and changing their behavior. When it comes to communication campaigns what we can do is certainly identify the impact of bullying, and certainly provide children, as well as the adults who influence them, with advice, counsel, tips on how they can change the behavior at that level. Particularly when you think about the 70 percent of children who aren't involved in bullying, there's a lot of potential there if it can be communicated to them how they can make a positive effect on a situation, in a safe manner. So that's been something that's driven the goals of the campaign from the beginning. Stephanie's mentioned that this is two years in the making. We started in September of 2001, and spent roughly a year doing research. And the research included an environmental scan, so that we clearly understood what was already being done out there, in terms of program implementation, as well as communications campaign. We found out what was going on at the state level, and even the local level. We didn't want to reinvent the wheel, and we wanted to make sure that we were replicating, or at least highlighting, those programs, those campaigns that are doing good work in the areas where they serve. We also did a lot of audience testing: focus groups with the tweens, focus groups with all the adult components of our target audiences. Really understanding how they perceive the issue, what sorts of messages resonate with them. I think one of the most important things we found in the focus groups with tweens is that, almost universally, tweens will say that adults either under-react, or overreact to bullying situations. They rarely get it right, if you ask tweens. And so that's also a very important message that we've taken into account as we've put together these campaign components: that adults frequently don't know how to react in a positive manner. And we want to help steer them to the right ways to respond. Two thousand three has really been focused on product development. And I'm going to talk about the various products that we've put together, and will be launching very soon. Research I talked about, focus groups I talked about. We also put together a youth expert panel. And this panel includes about 24 youth, nine through 13, as well as a couple of teen advisors. That was important to us because, (A) the tweens respond better to teens, than they sometimes do to adults. They feel more comfortable if they see what feels almost like a peer guiding them, or helping them through. And we also know that sometimes nine-year-olds aren't as articulate as they might become some day, and teens aren't so far from their own tween-bullying behaviors, that they have forgotten it, and they certainly can articulate it in a way that was helpful to us. So we brought the teens in, too. Twelve different states are represented by these members of the youth expert panel, and they include children who are bullied, children who bully, as well as bystanders. And of course it's a mix of students who come from a variety of racial and socioeconomic backgrounds. We've got a quick, little video here. I know we're running short on time, but we want to share with you a video that we produced, starring these tweens.

Unidentified Speaker: As someone who's bullied, and time and time again, eventually they might even become a bully themselves.

Unidentified Speaker: It happens at every period, like every passing period. It's like either someone getting punched, or someone getting yelled at, or general violence.

Unidentified Speaker: I remember lining up in the hallways for lunch and stuff, and seeing all these kids getting pushed, and being called names, and stuff.

Unidentified Speaker: The first time I, like a few times when I was bullied, I couldn't tell anyone except for my friends, because they understood, because they watched it. And it's especially hard to tell an adult, because they may not feel the same way you do. Like they may, if somebody come up to me and say, "I hate," kind of, "that stuff in your hair," or, "I hate your clothes." And then, and I may go tell my Mom, and she'd be all like, "It's just, it's just your clothes, it's just your hair. You shouldn't care." I mean I know I shouldn't care, but it still hurts me.

Unidentified Speaker: In my class I can tell that I've been pushed, and punches, and being called names to each other. Once I had--I (inaudible), and they all made fun of me.

Unidentified Speaker: Like, if sometimes it'll get from--apart from just being like name-calls and stuff, to being physical, and it would seem right to react to that.

Unidentified Speaker: They keep pushing you, and pushing you, and so go back and react to them, so that way you get in trouble. That's what they're trying to do.

Unidentified Speaker: Once you get involved, then the bullies come and start picking on you. Like, you might be on the bully's side, and then you get in trouble. Or they might be on the person who's getting bullied's side. A lot of people think it's fun to just sit there and watch, because then the teacher comes in, and the policeman comes in.

Unidentified Speaker: We, usually with girls, you take sides. And you usually take either your friend's side, or if you don't have a friend, then the person you believe, or the person's no longer friends with you.

Unidentified Speaker: First off, I do think that there are some adults who care. My counselor, for example, is very, very, very good about understanding kids. And she really seems to be able to help against bullying, which is pretty rare.

Unidentified Speaker: I agree with him. I think some adults do care, but yet again there are some adults that just blow if off and don't think much of it. But then the adults and the kids have different minds, really. The kids might take something and they could, like, exaggerate, and the adults--and they exaggerate once or twice, and the adults might think that they're exaggerating this time, too. Like, Columbine, I'm sure that there certainly was a small teasing problem.

Unidentified Speaker: I think whenever kids, whenever some kids come home they say that they were bullied, and it's a serious problem to them, and they told their parents. I think they're parents, they shouldn't just say, "Ignore it." And, "Go tell the teacher," and stuff. Because sometimes--it mostly doesn't work. I think the parents should just sit down with the children, and start talking to them about it because it would help a lot more than just saying, "Ignore it," or, "Go tell the teacher."

Unidentified Speaker: I think in a bullying environment you feel uncomfortable because you can't learn very well. You're always focused on them, "What am I going to do? I mean, I'm going to mess up, and he's going to make fun of me, I know it." And so you're not learning as much as you could, and you're missing out on a lot of education.

Unidentified Speaker: There was a girl who thought I liked her boyfriend, and I'm a really big problem to her, because even, even if it's just rumor, then she goes off at (inaudible). So she is frightening to everybody in the class.

Unidentified Speaker: I'll definitely say there's a huge, changing behavior for the kid who's being bullied. All of a sudden, as much as outgoing as they might be, all of a sudden they'll kind of disappear. And I think you might prove what we said, how if you're being bullied, all of a sudden, boom, you're on full alert to--if you see this person in the hallway, you go the other way.

Unidentified Speaker: They've been really great, and they've been very candid with us about what would and what would not work, when we're putting together the products that are supposed to speak to them. They also, certainly, let us know what they think will work and what won't work when we're putting together products to speak to the adults. But we didn't rely solely on them when we were putting together the products that are intended to speak to adults. We also put together a steering committee. Stephanie made reference to the Implementation Work Group, and that includes about 70 different not-for-profit organizations, mostly at the national level--I'm not going to ask you to read all those off--mostly at the national level, but a lot at the local level, too. For example, the state of Colorado's Attorney General's Office has done amazing work about bullying-prevention campaigns, New Jersey, likewise. So wherever we found a pocket of committed individuals who were doing good work, we invited them to become part of this campaign, and part of an implementation working group. After all this research working with the youth, we came up--or they came up, I should say--with the name of the campaign. And it's called "Take a stand. Lend a hand. Stop bullying now." They came up with the graphics; they came up with the title itself. I like it a lot. I didn't necessarily like the graffiti-ish look at first. But I told myself at the beginning of this campaign that it wasn't for me, so I would defer to the experts. "Take a stand" and "lend a hand" really do reaffirm two very important messages. One: that children who are bullied can, not necessarily fight back, we're certainly not encouraging that, but they can position themselves in a way that's stronger, that's less vulnerable, so that they aren't portrayed as much of a victim as possible. It also speaks to the bystanders who really can take a stand, and get in the middle of a bullying situation, and use humor or distraction or some of the other proven methods, to change the outcome of a bullying situation. "Lend a hand" certainly speaks to the bystanders as well, as well as parents, educators, health professionals, et cetera, who are going to make a difference. The primary communications vehicle that we're going to use to really get these messages out, because if you think about it, it's not a straightforward, single message--we've got messages for children who bully, and they certainly are different than the messages we're sending to children who are bullied. And they certainly are different than the messages we're sending to the bystanders and the adults. And if you work in communications, you know that you've got to keep it simple, and you've got to repeat it. Well, if you've got essentially three different messages going, it makes if difficult to sum up all of that. So what we developed was a series of webisodes. And webisodes are animated, serial comics. They will be broadcast on our website, and we're also looking for opportunities to broadcast them on television, too, as what they call "interstitials," sort of like "School House Rocks," that used to run on ABC. What the webisodes allow us to do is portray a variety of different characters who play different roles in a bullying scenario, including adults, and through these entertaining, little scenarios, model the behavior we hope to see in the children who watch them. They are entertaining; they do incorporate humor into it. You might not think that there's a way to bridge the gap between humor and bullying, but our writers succeeded at doing that. And they're interactive. At the end of each webisode there's a series of questions asking the youth to reflect on what he or she just saw, to make sure that our messages are getting through. We also have public service announcements. You essentially can't reach youth if you don't have some presence on television. And Stephanie mentioned that the National Association of Broadcasters, which is radio and television, is going to distribute our public service announcements to every station in the United States. They adopt two or three campaigns each year, and we were really fortunate that they saw our issue and our campaign as warranted for that kind of support. The spots target different roles: youth bystanders, adults, and children who are bullied. We don't have a spot for children who bully because, essentially, we concede that you're not going to change a bully's behavior through a 30-second spot. And we're approaching that through other methods. And also print PSAs for youth magazines and adults, as well. I talked about the ability of a campaign to raise awareness, but then the need to point to real resources that adults can incorporate into their lives, into the schools, to take our message and implement it in a substantive, long-term, comprehensive fashion. We basically have built a resource kit that has two different piles of information. One pile is a database of existing bullying prevention resources. As I said, we don't want to reinvent the wheel, and we know there's a lot of good stuff out there, Olveas and beyond. So we wanted to make sure that people who do want to make a difference had a way to find out what was available, and where they could go to get it. In addition, through our research, we identified gaps in the array of bullying prevention materials. And as frequently as we could, we filled those gaps by using our bullying-prevention experts to put together, for example, a tip sheet for superintendents who want to get started down the road of bullying-prevention: what to look for. Handouts for parents, posters, et cetera, I think when we launch, we'll have about 50 different new products available, in addition to all the existing stuff that's out there. We know the value of private-sector partnerships, and we know that they are available and willing to help spread the message, if we make it easy for them. So in addition to the resource kit, we have a communications kit. And any private-sector partner that wants to be a part of this: local level, national level, wherever they are, we can give them a kit that will provide all of the communications tools they would need to demonstrate their support of this campaign. So for example, we've put together a press release; we call it an "H2O Press Release" because you just add water. They drop their name in, and suddenly they have everything it takes to get maybe a little local media-hit to demonstrate their commitment to this. We've given them other promotional materials, like posters, camera-ready artwork that they can build their identity into, et cetera. October 2003: look at that, we are almost ready to launch. It's not going to be October. We have talked to the folks in the secretary's office of HHS, and so far, preliminarily, they really like what they see, and so we are eagerly anticipating a launch in November 2003, just a few weeks from now. The launch will include some sort of a media event. It will likely be here in Washington, D.C. HHS leadership will be participating; we're hoping to get the Surgeon General there, who's very committed to this issue. Our youth expert panel will be brought back to town so that they can be featured, and part of this big day that they've been waiting for. Our private sector and public sector partners will be in attendance, as will other sponsors who have been with us along the way. I have one minute. Stephanie mentioned the teleconference. The launch event is lots of flash, and not a lot of substance, but we understand that at some point we have to have a little bit less flash, and a lot of substance. So we've put together this teleconference that will really introduce the more substantive elements of these resource kits to the variety of constituencies that will be interested in implementing them. It's likely to occur in early 2004, I would say January, maybe February. Stay tuned on that. And that's it. Shall we open it up to questions?

Unidentified Speaker: We should.

Unidentified Speaker: We want to see the cartoon!