It’s becoming more obvious that the government is trying its best to push anti-bullying efforts. They’ve recently signed an agreement with Crime Stoppers to commit $107,500 over two years to allow students to text bullying incidents to the latter anonymously.
“It’s been received very well by the school divisions and we’ve had some uptake,” said Kevin Gabel, Executive Director of Programs for the Ministry of Education. “This just provides another option and it’s completely anonymous.”
The ability to report bullying online was made available last year with the creation of the I Am Stronger website. It provides students with information and tools to get help, including an anonymous online reporting option. The only problem is that you would need a computer or smart phone to be able to access it. By partnering with Crime Stoppers, students can use any phone, landline, or cellphone. With the phone option, however, they would have to talk to a live person.
“If an individual witnessed a bullying incident, they can simply text it to the Crime Stoppers number immediately,” said Gabel. “Nobody would hear them talking on the phone.”
The funding will go towards training Crime Stoppers staff in differentiating between bullying and other crimes. Crime Stoppers already trains their responding staff, so this support would just add to it and ensure that the tips are handled properly.
“We’re just trying to provide as many options as possible for the students,” said Gabel.
Since the online option became available, the Horizon School Division (HZSD) has only had one incident reported. The link to the I Am Stronger website is on every HZSD website as well as every school’s website in their jurisdiction.
“It’s tricky because it’s anonymous, but it does bring a clear awareness to things and enables us to address them,” said Kevin Garinger, director of education for HZSD. “The most important thing is for students to report incidents. Our main focus is of course to ensure student safety. We have to look at each of these situations as a threat to the safety of our children.”
Since these reporting tools are still fairly new, Garinger said HZSD will be monitoring the responses they get on a daily or weekly basis. He’s hoping that with so many options, it will allow students to make them more aware of bullying that’s been left unattended.
In the meantime, he said they’ll be doing their due diligence to respond to any reports that do come in.
“It won’t be until we delve into it and look at the data we’re getting from the reporting that we can gauge whether this is positive for the school division or whether it’s causing more issues because students can just send an anonymous text,” said Garinger.
In other words, there’s always the concern that some students might drain their resources by “goofing around.” Regardless, Garinger said he doesn’t anticipate that. Rather, this might be a more easily accessible option for students who are afraid of their bully or think the adults can’t help.
“In terms of the impact on eroding away the bullying cliffs that are built up in our areas, only time will tell if this helps,” said Garinger.
