Bully Report: Intervention best way to stop bullying

Community Matters: 11 Ways You Can Help to Stop Bullying

The best thing that other students can do to stop bullying is to intervene, according to 75 percent of teens, as cited in The Bully Report. The Do Something Organization compiled trends in bullying from students’ Facebook interactions.

Community Matters, creators of Safe School Ambassadors program, drew attention to the statistic on Friday in a Facebook status update. “However,” it added, “only 16 percent report that they see others intervene.”

Community Matters added, “There is a big gap between what teens believe and want and what they do. It is our responsibility as adults to address the gap and to close it.”

I know from experience how rarely students are willing to intervene.

I intervened during a rare situation when someone other than me was the target of classmates’ bullying. I spoke against my classmates’ ridicule of a fellow outcast. My effort was not reciprocated and the subject of this bullying sided against me with the classmates who ostracized us both.

In spite of the betrayal, I believe I was right to intervene.

Perhaps I would not have been so alone had a program like Safe School Ambassadors been in place at Calistoga Elementary School and Calistoga Junior/Senior High School. The program trains student leaders among fourth- through 12th-graders to prevent harassment and intolerance.

Safe School Ambassadors is aligned with my belief that prevention of bullying must involve the entire community, especially those students who are neither bullies nor targets of bullying.

Among adults, I believe library workers and journalists occupy a unique position as information gatherers. We are especially well placed to share the message that bullying is not OK and that bystanders have a powerful role to play.

Community Matters has compiled 11 ways to help stop bullying, including building alliances in the community and advocating for safer schools. This survivor of peer abuse, this journalist and volunteer librarian stands with Community Matters to combat bullying.