Responding to Cyberbullying

Schools deal with bullying through anti-bully policies, but cyberbullying presents new challenges. As a teacher or school staff member, there are things you can do in the battle against cyberbullying.

Support – Provide the person being bullied with support & reassurance. Tell them that they did the right thing by telling. Encourage the child to get help from parents, school counselor, principle or teachers. Make sure they know that there is support.

Evidence – Help the child keep relevant evidence for investigations. This can be done by taking screenshots on the phone & saving and printing messages or webpages. Do not delete messages from phone.

Information is Key – Give the child advice to make sure it doesn’t happen again. This can include changing passwords, contact details, blocking profiles on social media sites & using the social media bullying reporting tools.

No Retaliation – Ensure that the victim does not retaliate or reply the messages.

Privacy – Encourage the child to keep all personal information private on the internet.

Investigation – The cyberbullying claim must be investigated fully. If the bully is known, ask them to remove the offensive remarks or posts. All records should be kept as part of the investigation.

Report – Abuse on social media sites or through text messages needs to be reported to the website or cell phone providers. Report to law enforcement when there are:

• Threats of violence
• Child pornography or sending sexually explicit messages
• Taking a photo/video of someone in a place they would expect privacy
• Stalking or hate crimes

 

Preventing cyberbullying is not easy, because of the fact that it is on the internet it is hard to monitor & control.

The best way to prevent it is treat it as a whole school community issue, as well as treating it as another form of bullying within the schools anti-bullying policies.

Make sure that the students know that, no matter what form it’s in, all bullying is wrong & will not be tolerated.

Encourage the bystanders to be “up standers” by encouraging them to report any cyberbullying that they see, letting the bullying know that it’s not ok, & not be a part of spreading the gossip or hurtful messages.