We’re tackling a tough topic this week: bullying. TeachBeyond’s Safeguarding Lead, Bronwen Coe, shares strategies for preventing bullying in schools and responding to situations of bullying with care for the bully, the bullied, and the bystander.

• Read the article from TeachBeyond Safeguarding: “Dealing with Bullying in Your School”
• “It’s really hard to define bullying actually, and that’s why every organization should wrestle with their own definition to suit their context.”
• “The first thing you have to do is to start training and to have a conversation in your school to bring about awareness about why bullying [is] wrong.”
• “80% of bullying that happens online or face-to-face actually has a bystander, so the role of the bystander is crucial.”
• “The three common reactions for a bystander could be fear, empathy, or excitement.”
• “[Training] has to be understanding why it’s wrong, understanding your response, and then figuring out, problem solving together, a correct response that will help the whole triangle - the bully, the victim, and the bystander.”
• “Leaders cannot ignore it. Bullying happens.”
• ATE: Awareness, Trust, Empowerment
• “Restorative justice is a process to enable people to express their feelings in a safe and constructive way, and to be part of the responsibility to restore the situation.”
• Restorative justice questions: How can we make sure this doesn’t happen again? What can we do to make things right? How do you think this has impacted you or the person you bullied?
• “A child should be able to come quietly and speak to someone they trust in a school, and the person in the school should know whom to go to confidentially.”
• The Protectors program
• Lamentations 3:22
• “I pray for that every day - that I have compassion that is new every morning, that I can compassionately and professionally respond to things.”
• “Children are valuable. They deserve to be protected; they deserve to be listened to; they deserve to be trained.”

To learn more about Safeguarding, check out Episode 45 with Alison Neumann.

What’s changing our lives:

• Keane: End of the year lists
• Heather: Let’s Read the Gospels podcast
• Bronwen: Seeing life through the eyes of her granddaughter

Weekly Spotlight: International Education Services

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