VOICES AGAINST BULLYING

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3/11/2020

Steering team update 6

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​The Voices Against Bullying Steering Team met Tuesday evening to discuss key talking points that will be emphasized during a Community Partners session on Thursday, March 12 with the Hamilton Wentworth District School Board’s three-member anti-bullying panel.

Several Steering Team members plan to be in attendance when the panel is scheduled to hear from community organizations that have been invited to share their thoughts on preventing, intervening, reporting and responding to bullying.

Steering Team representatives have attended all four general sessions hosted by the anti-bullying panel, and this is another opportunity to ensure our voices are heard during this important discussion. As the panel prepares to wrap up the community consultation aspect of its work, just one more general session is planned for Wednesday, March 25 at Waterdown District High School, 6-9 p.m.

If you are feeling overwhelmed or anxious about attending the upcoming general session, we are here to help ensure everyone has the opportunity to contribute their thoughts, opinions and ideas. Email parentsmakingchange@gmail.com. Everything is confidential and free of charge.

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Voices Against Bullying’s Steering Team is assisting our community partner Nick’s Journey to ensure younger students’ voices are heard by the anti-bullying panel through two student and family focused anti-bullying sessions. The dates have been finalized and are Tuesday, March 31 at Waterdown District High School, 215 Parkside Dr., and Thursday, April 9 at Sir Winston Churchill Secondary School, 1715 Main St. E., Hamilton.

See the attached poster for more information.

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In just its first week, the Voices Against Bullying website had 477 page views. Clearly, there is a need for quality, experienced and educated resources and professionals to tackle the multi-faceted issue of bullying in our community.

You are never alone. We are just a mouse click away, ready to listen, help and assist.

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Don’t forget about our Spring Into Action event, Saturday, March 28. Leading local anti-bullying and mental health advocates will be on hand to share their expertise and advice. It promises to be an educational and informative couple of hours, complete with support and motivation, understanding and open conversation, music and more.

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3/4/2020

steering team update 5

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Our Steering Team has a new secretary so you should start seeing regular reports again!

Voices Against Bullying’s 10-member steering team met this past Saturday, February 29.

Positive steps are being taken on several fronts as we work toward our goals of assisting parents, stopping childhood bullying and collectively creating change and growth within our schools and communities.

* Plans for our Spring Into Action event - March 28, 2-4 p.m. - are well in hand. The event will feature five leading local mental health and anti-bullying advocates sharing their expertise and experience. The full scoop on the speakers is at the bottom of this report. Please plan to attend and share the flyer far and wide. We want to reach as many families who are struggling with bullying and mental health as possible.

* Our website has officially launched! Check it out at http://www.voicesagainstbullying.ca. The website content is a work in progress and will be updated in the near future with even more resources and valuable information for parents.

* Voices Against Bullying is working with our community partner Nick’s Journey to ensure the voices of elementary school children are heard by the Hamilton school board’s three-member Bullying Prevention and Intervention Review Panel. Final details are coming together for Elementary Student Focused Anti-Bullying Sessions. The sessions will start the week of March 30th and be completed by April 21st, aligning with the review panel’s interim report in May 2020. These sessions are designed for Hamilton JK-8 students and their families. Watch for updates on both our Facebook page and website.

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As promised, here is more information on our guest speakers for March 28.

Anti-bullying and harassment specialist Kathleen Hilchey brings to the event 20 years of experience amassed through formal study, her work in education and recreation, and wisdom acquired through raising her own children. Kathleen has two foundational beliefs: bullying is a global issue that extends far beyond the moment of aggression; and if people are taught the skills to better handle conflict, bullying ends.

Seventeen-year-old Emerson Edwards has been bullied by fellow students for most of the past decade. The high school student who almost took his own life is now an empowered survivor who speaks honestly and from the heart about his life, his torment and his recovery. By sharing his story, Emerson hopes to lend his strength and support to others on the journey toward healing. He has been working hard to develop a culture of caring at his own high school and hopes to expand his ideas into other schools.

Jessica Compton has experienced abandonment, abduction, abuse, addiction and was arrested four times. She was once a heartless bully, desperately struggling internally to find her place in the world. A child and youth worker for the past 15 years and an educational assistant for eight years, Jessica now shares some difficult times in her life through Tree of Stars, an organization she founded to promote mental health awareness and addiction recovery through music and art.

A registered nurse with a background in social work, Holly McAllister brings 45 years of experience to the discussion on bullying. Holly has worked throughout Southwestern Ontario with kindergarten to high school-aged children, seniors 90-plus and all ages in between to provide mental heath and crisis counselling to those in need. The proud mother and grandmother has a powerful passion for people and their emotional wellbeing.

Suzi Spelic is the co-founder and director of Nick’s Journey, a Canadian not-for-profit organization dedicated to advocacy, awareness and support for childhood depression and mental illness. Suzi is a fixture at most of the Hamilton Wentworth District School Board’s Bullying Prevention and Intervention Review Panel meetings. She was a big part of the driving force that pushed for a last-minute change in the planned format so participants’ voices would actually be heard by the three-member panel.

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2/10/2020

Welcome!

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Welcome to our blog! To start things off, what are some things you would would like to see us accomplish in the future?
​

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11/6/2019

steering team update 4

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Quick update from your steering committee. A few of us met with Penny Deathe today to discuss our group and the idea of working together on this issue. It was a very Productive meeting. For anyone who doesn't know Penny is our local School Trustee. That means she has the difficult job of being the parent liaise with the school board (in a nutshell). The meeting was very productive and collaborative and we believe that we can work well together on this.

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11/5/2019

Steering team update 3

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Steering Team update: We met again this past Saturday. We are meeting weekly in person and daily on-line. Please understand that we are all volunteer parents (and one student) who are doing this in our spare time.

Our primary initial strategy is to develop relationships of trust with the people who have the power to make change in the system, and people who can help us. Please understand that, in the early stages, those conversations must remain confidential, so we can't report on them here yet until the results are public. But they are happening fast!

We also spent time planning our Voices public event on Nov 16, 2-4 PM, at Flamborough Baptist Church. (See "Events" for more info.)

We also identified several key areas where we felt we as a parent group can have positive impact changing the way bullying is handled at HWDSB, and which ideas can be implemented within existing budget and structure restrictions. We need to start realistically before attempting loftier ideas.

It will take a village to change the way bullying is handled. We are claiming our power and our place as parents in that village.

Steering Team Members:
Julie Schaafsma
Rev. Ryk Brown
Kathleen Hilchey
Sherri Cormier Cully
Tracy Stewart
Nicole Callander
Emerson Edwards
Julie Gushul
Karen Todd

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10/29/2019

Steering team Update 2

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From the Steering Team: About the HWDSB meeting yesterday and the public reaction.

Yesterday HWDSB voted to create a 3-person panel to report back by May. We applaud and support this initiative. We are thrilled to see that our group was specifically identified as one of the stakeholders for the panel to speak with!

This does not preclude the Board from taking other action in the interim. We commend the Board for taking the time necessary to formulate good recommendations, even if some people feel that's too long. Knee-jerk recommendations usually don't fix a broken system.

We acknowledge that trust is low and skepticism is high about the Board's motives. We acknowledge that some people feel betrayed by the Board's inaction in the past. We do not have the moral authority to judge them. We will grant anyone the grace to learn from their past mistakes and make a change. If they're willing to work with us, then we're willing to work with them.

Let there be no misunderstanding: if it turns out that the skeptics are correct and this review panel is just a delay tactic, then we will not go away quietly! But we believe the Board is sincere.

One local group is calling for a nationwide walkout. We have serious concerns about this strategy, so we are not endorsing it. But, we have great sympathy for the frustration that is leading to it, so we are also not opposing it. You are free to decide for yourself whether you want your children to participate.

People and groups are connecting with us specifically because they support our strategy. And, so far, it has proved successful in getting our voice heard!

Thank you for ongoing support.

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10/27/2019

Steering team Update 1

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The Voices Against Bullying steering team met yesterday in person for the first time for two hours, at the end of which we were emotionally exhausted. This is tough stuff to deal with.

The first thing we did was simply give everyone the chance to share their own story of bullying and why they want to be a part of the solution, as well as what skills they have to offer. That ended up being a very emotional experience and taking significantly more time than expected, but created a huge amount of necessary trust.

One of the principles we're operating under is that we're not know-it-alls. And if we approach the board like we already know what the solution is, then the board will just listen politely and ignore us. If we want to change the system, then we first need to understand the system. And to do that we need to hear from people who work in the system, but, firstly, from outside Hamilton.

So we brought in two resource people with over 60 years of experience working in the Ontario school system dealing with bullies, one as a principal and the other as one of the founders of the OSSTF Restorative Justice program. And we have other experts lined up to meet with us in the future so that we can better understand how the system is supposed to work, how it really works, what has actually worked elsewhere, and what has not worked elsewhere.

Some of our key learnings so far:

1. The first priority of the system is supposed to be creating a safe space for learning. The system is failing on this primary responsibility. Children are not being protected. But we already know that. That's why we're here.

2. Approaching the board in anger will not change the system. There are plenty of good reasons for parents to be angry, but we need to channel that into constructive influence.

3. Protests, t-shirts, and buttons will not change the system. Those things make us feel better in the short term because they make us feel like we're doing something. But raising awareness is not the solution. Everyone in the system is already fully aware there is a problem. More awareness won't fix the system.

4. The teachers and administrators who are succeeding in making a difference elsewhere actually have to break the rules in order to get results, so the existing rules aren't working.

5. One of the problems with bullies is not that they need more awareness of bullying, it's that they don't understand that what they're doing is bullying.

6. Changing the system will require using the relationships we have and developing new relationships with the people inside the system who have the power to make a difference. Real change has to come from within the system. We have the power to influence that.

7. Changing the system will require being an ally, not an adversary to the system.

8. Just punishing bullies doesn't work. It just shifts them to be somebody else's problem. And it actually makes the bullies worse, by robbing the bullies of the power they have to change themselves. Remember, they're still children. Our goal is not punishment. Our goal is to change them into productive human beings so they don't grow into adult bullies.

9. Changing the system requires a comprehensive approach. It requires protecting victims, but also teaching them how not to be further victimized, because bullies can't bully without a target. It requires teaching bystanders to be upstanders, because bullies thrive on an audience. It requires coaching bullies how to use their power in helpful ways instead if hurtful ways. It may require crafting new rules that allow teachers and administrators to be empowered to make a difference. It may require new accountability systems. And it will require support from us in the parent community to bring resources beyond what boards are capable of providing in a climate of budget cutbacks.

Some of you may feel frustrated because you're not seeing enough action yet. The time for action will come, but knee-jerk action will not change the system. We are in this for the long run, for as long as it takes to actually make Hamilton schools safe for our children.

We meet again next Saturday.

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