(bright upbeat music continues) Welcome to At Issue.

I'm H Wayne Wilson.

Thank you so much for joining us for a discussion about bullying.

One in five children in grades six through 12 have experienced bullying.

20% of school people in six through 12th grade.

And that number is probably low because there are cases of unreported bullying that we do not count in that number.

We're going to be talking about the problem and more importantly some solutions that exist with four experts in the field.

Let me first introduce to you, Ron Tyler.

Ron is the youth outreach director at family core.

Thank you for being with us.

- You're welcome.

- BeMario Boone is here.

Demario is the director of school safety at Peoria Public Schools.

Demario thank you.

- Thank you.

- And also with us by way of Zoom is Laura Kowalske.

Laura is with the Center for Prevention of Abuse where she is the director of prevention education.

Laura, thank you for being with us.

And also with us from McLean County is Cinnamon.

Cinnamon Porter is the mission impact educator for the wide WCA McLean County.

Cinnamon thank you for being with us.

- Thank you.

- Laura let me start with you because I think and this may be a rather broad definition, but what is the definition of bullying?

- Well, bullying is really something that we can define by looking at its four main characteristics.

And when we talk about bullying we use the acronym hour, H-O-U-R and those are the core characteristics of bullying where they stand for the four characteristics.

So H is hurtful.

It hurts one physically, emotionally or hurts their property.

It is one-sided.

So someone is doing something to someone but the other person is doing nothing in retaliation.

It's unfair.

And by that we mean there's a power differential in the incident that's occurring.

And that power might be something like an individual is more popular or has more social status.

And they're using that as power over someone else to control them.

It might be that they're larger, they're are stronger, they might be somebody who has more stuff, more cool stuff that they use to hold over someone else in control of their behavior.

And then finally the R stands for repeated.

So it doesn't happen just one time but it happens over and over again and the person isn't able to make it stop.

So that acronym hour, H-O-U-R is very handy to remind yourself of the characteristics of bullying.

- Let me turn to Ron for a moment and talk about there are different types of bullying.

There's verbal, social, physical, and more recently in the last dozen years or so, cyber bullying which may be the most difficult one to deal with.

- [Ron] Yeah.

- How do you I mean this is a whole new arena.

- Yes correct.

- Is there a different way of dealing with cyber bullying as opposed to the other three types of bullying?

- Really, the cyber bullying has really more to do with the electronic communication that our kids have.

The latest statistic I read said 75% of teens or preteens 12 to 16 year olds had cell phones.

That's a significant portion of kids.

And so with all of the social media and things like that, managing it is a little different it's kind of under the radar unless as a parent you're monitoring that.

And so yeah it does make it difficult to catch unless somebody is telling us.

- So Cinnamon, that requires parents to be pretty observant of their children in the types of activities they're involved in because if you're physically bullied you might see evidence of that, things of that nature but with the cyber bullying, how does a parent know that something's going on?

How do they monitor this?

- That's a great question and one thing that I do is have children and teens advocate for themselves.

So having them recognize what cyber bullying is and letting them know that it's okay to tell an adult that they're experiencing cyber bullying.

So trying to build a relationship with a safe adult that the child or the teen feels comfortable going to the adult and I think the role can also be reversed which is the adult saying to the child or the teen, "Hey if you experienced these things, "please let me know, because as your adult "I'm here to make sure that you are safe."

But it is a hard thing to try to monitor.

- Demario in Peoria Public Schools.

Is there a particular type of bullying that is more common than others?

Ones that you have to look out for more often?

- Just bullying in general.

We try to stay on top of we're very proactive as far as having programs like our "start with hello" which we got through a grant through Sandy Hook Promise to arm kids with the knowledge of when students are feeling isolated or if there's a student that's alone in a lunchroom, teaching kids those skills to go and approach that student and to make them feel inclusive.

Also with our Lights on Peoria Program where it basically is a weekend program we adopted from New Jersey that brings students into the building they can play basketball, they can play video games, they get haircuts together but it really just tries to get that family dynamic.

So no matter what type of bullying it is, we just try to stay on top of it.

But there isn't a particular type of bullying that stands out.

It's just trying to be proactive in making sure all students feel included.

- And I want to talk more about those two programs later on the program but first Laura, why does a bully bully?

- Well, bullying is a form of abuse.

And with any form of abuse the primary motivating factors are power and control.

So an individual who might engage in bullying behavior is a person who may appear on the outside to have a lot of power.

They might have that socioeconomic status that popularity, they might be stronger or more athletic than someone.

But for some reason they feel like they need a bit more control within their lives.

And they gain that control by controlling other people.

So the loss of power, they feel like they need to take power from someone else in order to fill themselves up and by doing so, controlling the other person helps them feel more powerful.

So it really is about power and control not about trying to gain attention from other individuals.

- Would it be a case that quite often the bully will bully where there isn't any witness?

- Oh, absolutely.

Right.

I think if we're talking about school settings oftentimes the areas where bullying occurs most often are those areas where maybe the adults are not, their eyes are not there most prevalently.

So that would be, the hallways, the restrooms, out at recess, on the playground those areas where adults just can't be everywhere all the time monitoring everything.

And so the individual that believes knows that and capitalizes on those areas where they're not gonna be seen.

- And likewise, let's turn around Cinnamon and look at the person who is bullied.

What type of response I mean, quite often we hear this, an eye for an eye but what should the person who was bullied, how should they respond?

- So what we try to teach the kids is to feel empowered.

So to stand up for themselves.

So what we practice is having kids be assertive.

So standing up tall, using a strong voice and having a serious face and telling that bully, "No" or "Stop".

And if that bully doesn't listen then we practice getting away from that bully and then reporting to an adult.

I think it's also important that we include people who might be standing by.

So let's say it was at recess and there's other kids around.

We also try to empower those kids to also stand up to the bully and say, "Hey, that's not okay.

"You shouldn't treat my classmate this way."

- Let's continue the conversation about the bystander or the witness, whatever term you wanna use Ron.

- [Ron] Yeah.

- I believe too often people will just say, "Well, I'll turn a blind eye to this."

What should they do other than what cinnamon already suggested?

- Yeah.

I mean, bystanders shouldn't be bystanders.

If they see something going wrong and bullying among their classmates they can stand up for them, they can tell a teacher, they can tell their parent.

I mean but don't just be a bystander because when we just stand by we're passively accepting what's happened or thanking God that it didn't happen to me or I better not intervene or he or she will bully me.

And that can be so powerful H if we are not bystanders.

When it's out there then other people know and when other people know other people can do things about it and let them know, not at my house not at my school, not on the playground, not at my church, not in my community.

And I think that's what we have to do as a community to kind of sniff out bullying and we have to do it in every facet of our lives from the city council meetings, to neighborhood association meetings, to church services.

I have school counselors and 14 schools I mean we're doing it anywhere teachers we have to do it as a team because we can't do it in a vacuum.

- Laura, you wanna expand on that please?

- Well, I was just gonna share, Ron is exactly right and there is a statistic that says in 57% of incidents where a bystander Intervenes, that bullying stops within 10 seconds so I think that statistic really underscores the importance of a bystander doing something to either help the individual who being bullied by helping to refuse that bullying or assisting them in reporting it or doing something to support the person who's being bullied.

- Demario, if you investigate these reports of bullying.

Is that your experience that quite often a bystander can make the biggest difference?

- Yeah.

There a huge difference.

And again that's why we touted this Sandy Hook promise Program which start with "hallo" because it armed students with the tools to be able to intervene, to be able to be those bystanders bystanders and to say, Okay we recognize these forms of bullying and there's more than one student that'll be interacting with those students to help.

So those are the biggest thing is when a bystander helps out.

- Let's start with that, "start with hello".

Explain more about that program and how it works.

- It's a program that we applied for grant through Sandy Hook Promise and it it basically teaches students empathy.

It helps to change the climate within the schools so that when students feel self isolated other students will be able to recognize that behavior and be able to go over to that student and address it.

And it gives the culture just a positive culture in that school and it's just proactive so when you have bystanders and you multiply that by 10, 20, 30 students that are in the building all day that can be able to navigate these situations it just makes for a better climate.

- It sounds like peer pressure or peer to peer mentoring.

- Yes.

Yeah.

'Cause they have peace clubs where each school has students that are involved in that peace club so they would meet they would talk about the climates in their school.

They would address how to fix the climate.

There were some great examples where if there's a student that is always isolated they had a program where students basically decorated that student's locker and made them feel appreciated.

So when they came to school that day they knew that their peers cared about them.

- Is there a way to measure the effectiveness of this program?

- I would say it's been effective since we've started it because we've had more kids that would come forward and say, Hey, just like the everybody was talking about not in our community, not in our school.

we have more kids step forward and say, "This is not what we want on our school."

So I would think it's highly successful - Cinnamon, we of course know that Not in Our Town is a program in Bloomington-Normal in McLennan County but there's also not in our school.

Does that play into this situation with bullying?

- Yeah.

They do a good job especially the Not in Our School Programs in terms of trying to change the school climate, trying to make kids feel involved in their school community and if you ask students, "Do you want to have a safe school?"

Every student says, yes.

And so Not in Our School does a good job of trying to create a school environment that is safe.

- Ron, you said that a family core is in 15 different schools.

What kind of program do you have that reaches out to students in this regard?

- Yeah, at one of our schools we have a bully patrol group and it's got kids from every class that participate and they learn the signs and symptoms of bullying and what to do, how to interact and how not to be a bystander.

A lot of the schools have, especially in the primary schools they have friendship benches so when kids are out playing and they see a kid we're teaching the kids to say, "All you have to do is sit at this bench "if you need a friend or somebody to play with."

So you're not isolated.

And just they have been very impactful for the schools and kids in terms of that.

So the school districts are really doing a bang up job on trying to intervene in this situation.

- Laura, we've been talking about the role of students to a great degree and how they can help fellow students.

But what about the role of the parent?

- Well, parents can be a great support for a student who is experiencing bullying.

And I think first and foremost, parents understanding what bullying is and then supporting their child in the way their child wishes to be supported.

Because remember bullying is all about taking control and power from someone and so we want to empower the child to get the help that they wish in a way that they wish to get it.

And so for some children that might mean they might want their parent or guardian or family member or trusted adult to step in for them and assist them by reporting to them and having that adult do something for them.

Other children may just wish to talk to their trusted adult, their parent or family member and role-play how they're gonna handle this situation.

So when it comes up again they feel empowered to be able to handle it themselves.

So the best thing that parents can do is really listen to their child, understand the way that their child wishes to be supported through this situation and then lend that support and assistance.

- Laura, I wanna continue the conversation about the go beyond just the parent.

When a case goes to the level of needing a counselor what role does the counselor and Ron if you wanna jump in here or Cinnamon please follow up with what Laura has to say.

So Laura, the role of the counselor - The role of the counselor is wonderful and can be extremely helpful and healing.

And we really, the counselor would take the cue from the child and so offer the assistance and the resources that that child may think is best for them and just really be there to support that child in any way that they wish to be supported.

- Cinnamon, would you like to continue that portion of the conversation for us?

- I agree absolutely with what Laura said, counselors can be a great mediator as well as a resource for students that come to a constant, safe adult - [Wayne Wilson] And Ron - Yeah.

I mean, one of the things that the counselors can do is like everybody else has said intervene but they can teach skills that can help the child in terms of a lot of kids who are bullied probably need a little self-regulation help in terms of calming myself down because it's a very offensive thing to a child.

And so making sure that we're teaching them the skills on how to handle this, how to problem solve, how to resolve conflict.

I mean those are the critical things that I think counselors can provide for the child, the student, and then engaging with the parent as well.

- Demario, you explained earlier the Start With Hello.

what about the program Lights on Peoria?

- Lights on Peoria is like a weekend program for students to come in there and just be themselves, hang out with other students.

The best part about that is, you could have like the jocks that love to just play basketball all night and kids like me who were kind of the nerves at the school, who just play video games.

Most of the time it didn't work the most athletic.

When we have students rotate and you walk into a classroom and one of the kids that are the jocks is playing a video game with the kid that might be looked down upon because they're not and they're having that interaction over a weekend when they come back to school Monday, that starts to infuse inside the climate because they know each other and it just makes it that much better to reinforce that and it makes students feel welcomed.

- Cinnamon, I'd like you to continue that portion of the conversation with regard to if there's a program over in McLean County that works similar to this but the importance that you have counselors, you have parents but it seems from what I'm hearing that the best solution here is building that peer relationship, the student to student bond.

- Yeah.

So we don't have a program similar to the Lights Out.

That is a great program.

What we use is the committee for children, they have two different curriculums.

One is a bullying prevention curriculum but then the other one is a social, emotional learning which is basically what he was just talking about building empathy skills, building relationship skills, getting to know on each other.

So when you get to know each other and you build a community you are less likely to bully someone else.

So those are the two main programs that we use at YWCA McLean County.

- Laura, I wanna talk a little bit about why we need to curtail bullying at a young age because it will lead to problems as an adult if it isn't addressed.

- Right.

We do need to curtail it at a young age and the best time to curtail it is at that young age when students are learning to manage their emotions, learning about respect and empathy and conflict resolution and the fact that there can be negotiation and compromise and those are great ways to resolve conflict.

But if it goes undetected or if it persists there are things, emotional issues that can arise, depression, anxiety, sleeplessness, physical symptoms can occur, stomach aches, headaches and other, just physical illnesses due to bullying.

There is a correlation between an individual who bullies when they're young and later criminal activity.

So there are consequences of bullying behavior for sure.

- Ron, please continue that.

- Yeah.

I think the statistics say something like 60% of those who bully end up having some sort of criminal involvement later in life and so we want to give every kid an opportunity and we have to remember that sometimes and a lot of times, I guess that the bully has been bullied themselves.

They have been bullied, they have been shown well, this can be successful if you do it this way.

If you look big and tall or you're threatening and whatever and so they've learned like this skill to be successful at getting what they want and then ultimately they turn into bullies and stuff.

So the sooner the better and I'm just working collaboratively together in our community at every level.

- Your comments seem to have struck a chord with Demario.

He's shaking his head.

Yes.

Over here.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

It's just the sooner the better.

Just kind of seeing when we reach the kids at a younger age, by the time they get to high school or even older, they're just able to better navigate and they're better to have more self-awareness and empathy about bullying or the effects of it.

So yeah, the sooner the better.

It's a lot better to start on the ground floor.

- Cinnamon, your program's over in McLean County.

Are they directed at the younger students or is it across the board?

- It's across the board but we do a lot of bullying prevention with elementary and even kindergarten, preschool aged students because like everyone else has mentioned the sooner that we can give them this information the better but obviously there's still bullying in junior high and high school.

So we still have those conversations with the older students as well.

- Laura, we've been talking about kids in school and we know that bullying affects performance and that affects future life.

How important is it to get control of this so that we don't have poor grades and poor performance in school?

- Relationships are what life is really all about and so I think everyone wishes to have healthy relationships and peer relationships are a huge part of a young person's life.

Maybe even more important to them sometimes than their own family relationships.

They care more about what their peers think of them than family sometimes.

So we want everybody to have healthy, positive relationships and so it's very important to get a handle on it early and teach kids the healthy characteristics that relationships and help them practice those and develop them so as they get older they will have those healthy relationships.

- And Ron, she brings up a good point.

It's not just that relationship with your fellow classmates but family relationships.

- Absolutely.

Your kids can be more resilient.

The stronger your relationship is with your child, the stronger they will be.

And the more willing that there'll be able to say things.

I think when it comes to bullying sometimes a kid doesn't want to get his parent involved maybe a dad like me who says, "Well, I'll just go to the school and I'll take care this."

But they don't want it.

But if they have a good relationship with you they're gonna share some things with you that maybe they wouldn't cause they're most like they care.

Kids care about what other kids.

Yeah.

They care about it.

They care about what other kids say.

- And with that, we hope that you become more aware of your surroundings and how bullying may occur at any level in any form.

And we say thank you to Ron Tyler who is with Family Corp and Peoria.

To Demario boone director of safety at Peoria Public schools.

Thank you for being with us and also to Laura Kowalske of the center for prevention of abuse and Cinnamon Porter at the YWCA McLean County.

Thank you all four of you for joining us on At Issue.

And we invite you to join us next time on At Issue when we'll be talking more about innovation in Peoria it's something called distillery labs.

Reflecting on the past and looking to the future on the next At Issue.

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