THE Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (ISPCC) is currently running its fourth Shield Campaign to make tackling bullying a national priority. Limerick Post reporter Alan Jacques takes a look at the society’s role in eradicating bullying from the playground, classroom, and within communities.
by Alan Jacques
THE Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (ISPCC) received more than 7,970 calls from all over Ireland to its Childline service in 2013 from children and young people in relation to bullying.
That’s 23 children a day — almost an entire average-sized classroom.
That startling statistic clearly show that bullying is a very real problem in Ireland and one that is affecting children at a very young age. In addition, the ISPCC received a large number of calls on issues relating to bullying including self-esteem, depression, mental health issues and school problems.
According to the Society’s findings, 26 per cent of young people in secondary school have been victims of bullying, or know someone who has. Twenty two per cent of young people in primary school have been victims of bullying, or know someone who has, and 40 per cent of nine year olds were victims of bullying in the last year.
In Limerick, the ISPCC’s services includes the Childhood Support Service, an intensive therapeutic support programme for children with emotional and behavioural difficulties that improves relationships, develops coping skills and promotes positive behaviours. One-to-one weekly sessions are provided by professionally trained staff in the child’s own home or other suitable environment.
In 2014, there were 61 referrals to the Childhood Support Service in Limerick and for four of these, the primary reason for referral was ‘experience of bullying’. In addition, the ISPPC received three referrals for children and young people experiencing low self-esteem; four for social isolation and ten experiencing behavioural difficulties. In a number of these cases, the reason for referral was given as low self-esteem stemming from bullying.
The ISPPC worked with 31 children/young people in Limerick City and County within this service last year.
The Society also offers a Child Mentoring Service locally for children aged 10 to 18 years. A comprehensive community based service, it forms a supportive relationship between a young person and an ISPCC volunteer.
Other services include a mentoring service for parents/carers to improve coping ability, parent/child relationships and parenting skills while increasing individual support networks.
The ISPPC also run Childline, a universal, comprehensive listening and support service provided free of charge 24 hours a day to all children by phone, text or online. Calls to Childline reveal that the impact of bullying can be detrimental to a young person’s life and wellbeing.
ISPCC director of services, Caroline O’Sullivan, told that the Limerick Post that online bullying has become a “massive danger” as an instrument for bullying. She believes that the number of likes a young person has on Facebook can be enough to instigate bullying from peers and advises parents never to dismiss bullying or be tempted to tell their child to ignore the problem.
“Children can be very good at hiding the fact they are being bullied, but nine and ten year olds are not equipped to deal with it. Bullying cannot be ignored. You have to tackle it by talking about it so it doesn’t impact on the child.
“Children can be very cruel and you have to support the child who is being bullied. Being bullied can be very traumatic. Telling a child ‘ignore them, they will go away’ doesn’t work, we have to talk about it and deal with the problem,” she insists.
Every day ISPCC volunteers and staff work as shields; protecting, supporting and listening to children. Their services are preventative and empowering, providing children and young people with the necessary coping skills to deal with and protect themselves from bullying.
Now in its fourth year, the ISPCC’s Shields Campaign aims to make tackling bullying a national priority by building on the Society’s work with 200 schools across Ireland, and working with clubs, community groups and directly with parents to protect children from bullying. It highlights the positive work undertaken in schools around the country to eradicate bullying from the playground, classroom, communities and through social media channels.
ISPCC chief executive Grainia Long commented, “Tackling bullying should be a national priority — and we hope that through our Shield Campaign, tackling bullying will become everyone’s business.”
“In 2015, we will be working to ensure that national organisations, including political parties, stand up against bullying, by pledging their support for the campaign,” said Ms Long.
The ISPCC is now asking the public to support the Shield Campaign and all anti-bullying work by wearing a Shield pin – available for €2 in Penneys and M&S nationwide throughout the month of March. This year there is also a new ISPCC Shield Bangle – available solely from the 36 Penneys stores nationwide for €2.50. All proceeds will benefit ISPCC. Those wishing to support the campaign can do so by texting the word ‘Shield’ to 50300 to donate €2.
by Alan Jacques
STARTING secondary school can be a nerve-racking experience.
Sam (not his real name), like most children, was excited but nervous about his first day.
His mum Mary (not her real name), like most mums, was emotional about seeing her young son take the first steps into this important chapter in his life.
Sam was a happy, confident, sociable child who had lots of friends. He had been really happy in his primary school and was captain of the GAA team.
On the 12-year-old’s first day in post-primary he looked smart in his new uniform as he set off on his bike to cycle the short distance to his new school. Excited to hear how he got on during his first day, Sam’s mum took the day off work to be there when he got home.
When he was late returning home from school, Mary started to worry and was shocked to see her son when he eventually came in the door.
“His school trousers were torn and covered in blood. Little did I know that morning that I would be spending the afternoon in the A&E Department of our local hospital where Sam had to have five stitches in his leg and a tetanus injection,” said Mary.
“Sam told me that another boy who was also cycling home had accidentally collided into him and the pedal of the other boy’s bike had caused the gash in his leg,” she explained.
Over the coming weeks, Sam’s dad, mum and older sister and extended family noticed a huge shift in his demeanour.
“He became moody and spent a lot of time in his bedroom. His grandmother described it well when she said ‘it’s like someone turned a light off inside that child. He isn’t the boy he used to be.’ We expressed our concern and asked him if he was worried about anything but he said everything was fine and became angry if we tried to explore further.”
One Friday, Sam arrived from school to his grandmother’s house for a visit and fainted in the hallway when she opened the door.
He recovered after a few minutes but the incident heightened his family’s concern, as he would not open up about what was going on.
“I was so worried about him, I often cried myself to sleep,” Mary recalled.
“I knew there was something wrong and was upset because Sam wasn’t talking to me. We had always been so close and he would have talked to me in the past if he was worried about anything.”
A few weeks later, Sam’s family learned that he was being bullied.
Sam had gone to a local shop with his sister and on their way home an older student at the school shouted ‘we didn’t get you today but we will get you on Monday’. When confronted about this by his family, the floodgates opened.
“Through his tears he told me that he had been bullied since his first day in his new school. There were about eight boys involved and the ringleader had been a year ahead of Sam in primary school. What we thought was an accident on that first day wasn’t. It was an attack by the ringleader and two other boys who rammed their bikes into him, knocking him off his bike causing the injury to his leg.
“Every day after that Sam was called names, beaten or threatened. This had been going on for nearly two months but, to be honest, for us as a family it seemed much longer. For me as a mother I had watched my happy, confident, outgoing little boy disappear before my eyes. It was heartbreaking.”
It turned out that the ringleader of the bullies was jealous of Sam. On his first day at school the bully stated, ‘you thought that you were great in primary school as captain of the GAA team. The teachers thought you were great, but let’s see what a great fella you are in this school.’
The school principal was defensive and unsupportive when Sam’s family brought the bullying to his attention. After securing a place in a new school for their son things started to change for the better.
“He is really happy,” Mary revealed.
One thing Sam’s mum says she learned from this experience is that no matter how good your relationship is with your children, sometimes they find it hard to talk about things to the people close to them.
“When I asked Sam why he couldn’t talk to any of his family about what was going on, he said he felt ashamed and embarrassed because as a boy he felt that he should have been able to stand up to bullies. He also felt hurt because these boys didn’t like him and being popular and fitting in with peers was very important to him,” she said.
Sam now talks to first year students at information evenings about his school’s anti-bullying policy and mentors them to ensure that they have someone to turn to if they are upset or worried about anything in school.
