Empowering victims to stop bullying

Carolanne Tremblay
Carolanne Tremblay

A few years ago, a young student from our region ended her life ... The continual bullying she faced daily was the main cause of her desperation.

This event was a major turning point for our team at Optania. This tragedy touched us to the very depths of our hearts. How can one be insensitive to the suffering of a person, a suffering so great and a person so desperate about the situation of intimidation that they commit the irreparable? To commit one of those irreversible acts also filled with heavy consequences? Faced with the pain of compassionate hearts, our team felt the need to support these young people, caught with a problem making them feel helpless. How can we support them? How can we help them see the light at the end of the tunnel? How can we remove the veil from their isolation and perception that no one can help them, while the help is there, the people around are present and ready to welcome their suffering and help them disperse it?

We all stopped for a moment and asked ourselves: what can we do to counter bullying in our schools? What can we create to support victims and witnesses of bullying so that this kind of situation does not happen again? How can we put our shoulders to the wheel to support school workers?

Reporting bullies is good. Assisting victims is better.

Support to tackle bullying

We have thought long and hard. What we understood is that there must be something beyond denunciation. Yes! It is important for a victim or witness to report bullying. Denunciation is important because it allows bullies to be intercepted and worked with to stop mistreating others. But denunciation is not an end in itself. It is also necessary to support the victims and the witnesses, without victimizing them, but rather by welcoming them, supporting them in their assertion of oneself, valuing them in what they are!

However, it is to adolescents, to children, to whom we address ourselves. It is to young people who already have some difficulty expressing themselves or having a good self-esteem, who we, the adults, ask to denounce, to talk about what they have experienced.

Our team believes that it is best to prepare the victims or witnesses to denounce bullyingand to support them in this important challenge. How ? By supporting them,offering them solutions to communicate what is happening to the right people, to get them out of their isolation, tohelp them use their self-affirmation potential. This will have the effect of promoting greater empowermentand self-efficacy in the situation. Help them get out of their isolation and fear to direct them towards caring people, competent adults working with them in school environments, and able to continue the path begun.

For bullies, denunciation is the first step in directing them to services, practitioners and professionals in their school who are best positioned to foster an increase in their level of empathy, awareness of the scope of their gestures and improving their social power towards something caring. It's a first step, but a long hike awaits them.

You don't want to talk? Just type it.

Beyond statistics, the problem of bullying remains. How can we talk to those who do not want to talk? One of the insidious aspects of bullying is that the victims develop a great deal of fear about denunciation. It is the law of silence that feeds intimidation and that must inevitably be broken. But where to start? How to secure these young people, who often feel so helpless and hesitant to open up to a trusted adult?

To denounce, it is necessary that teenagers be able to speak up about it, to put words to what they are living. The generation of students present in schools has grown with new technologies. So, how can we join them? By using the tools they are used to. We believe that it can be easier for them to write what they are living on a computer than to talk directly with someone in their school. We also think that it is perhaps less implicit to write what they are living on a platform, but this is only the first step of the journey.

The fear of judgment and of not being listened to are so strong that they can prevent a young person to confide in. It may be easier for them to "talk" about what they have experienced or seen on a computer. The most impersonal aspect can persuade a young person to take a stand and seek help. The next step is always to foster a link with the direct services of the school. With that said, the important thing is to reach them where they feel isolated in order to link them with the trusted adults around them.

Finally, the important thing is that they talk about it, at least not to live with this terrible secret.

You don't know what to do? Just log in.

Computers, smart phones and tablets are all connected tools that young people use every day and trust. Therefore, these tools seem ideal for communicating with them. They will be able to connect from where they feel most safe, when they are ready to do so, and they can talk about what they need.

Don't be afraid. You're not alone.

This is what victims or bullying witnesses need to hear. It is important that they know that people around them, their friends, their parents, their school workers and teachers are there.

Our team, at Optania, after many questions, research on best practices to counter intimidation, and several storms of ideas, chose our path. That of developing a Web platform supported by a caring artificial intelligence able to support and guide victims and witnesses of intimidation by ending their isolation.

How? By questioning young people about what they have experienced, by targeting their own needs, proposing solutions for them, preparing them to speak, to denounce, to meet an advisor, and take the first steps for themselves.

Beyond denunciation, our benevolent artificial intelligence supports young people in an approach where they learn to assert themselves better, to value harmonious and healthy relations as well as to favor the prevention of new situations of intimidation. It also helps them to understand the importance of the role they play, especially if they have witnessed a situation of intimidation. It will allow them to grow from helpless observers; they will understand the importance of becoming active witnesses.

« Our caring artificial intelligence provides secure virtual support for young people. It interacts in their isolation to prepare them to communicate with a member of their school community. »

Because our ultimate goal is to facilitate interactions between young people and school workers to counter bullying and develop harmonious relationships in our schools.

Our team will be attending the annual International Association for the Prevention of Bullying (Hitting the High Notes with Empathy and Kindness) conference, November 5-7, 2017 in Nashville. We will present our brand new tool: Optania – Bullying Module!

Let us guide you

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