Respectme Annual Report 2009

ANNUAL REPORT

contents

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FOREWORD

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CAPACITY BUILDING

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POLICY THROUGH TO PRACTICE...GETTING IT RIGHT

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‘YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE’ CAMPAIGN

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WHAT BULLYING MEANS TO ME

10 ONE MILLION AND COUNTING 12 CONFERENCE TIME 14 PARTNERSHIP WORKING 15 YOU HAVE MADE A DIFFERENCE 19 KEY HIGHLIGHTS

“Bullying is an issue of great concern to the children and young people of Scotland. We are committed to making sure that all children and young people are able to become successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens and effective contributors. Bullying can become a barrier to achieving this.

“The work of respectme is extremely important. They enable those working directly with children and young people in schools, children’s services and communitybased organisations to build capacity to prevent and tackle bullying effectively. We know that children and young people will talk to a trusted adult and we need to ensure that we are all able to respond effectively to their concerns.

The work of respectme directly contributes to our aim that all children and young people should grow up free from bullying.”

Keith Brown, Minister for Schools and Skills

foreword Reflecting on the last twelve months has been pleasing and challenging. Pleasing in the sense of what we have achieved – the relationships we have built and the difference we are starting to make – and challenging in that we have set a high benchmark from which to build.

We have continued to meet the ever-increasing demand for practice development training across the country, from the Islands to the Borders. This increase in demand for training from individual organisations has enabled us to reach a wide and diverse audience who have, in turn, been able to inform the work we do.

We are working in partnership with 16 of Scotland’s 32 local authorities on policy development and the delivery of training. Our level of support is dependent on their needs and ranges from written and verbal consultation on policy drafts and delivering training, through to being an integral part of the policy review group. We look forward to embarking on the journey of implementing these policies into practice with a number of partners in the coming months, supporting them every step of the way.

Our second annual conference was a huge success, largely in part to the central role played by the very talented children and young people who shared their personal stories, performed an amazing drama production and created a video diary of the day’s events.

Indeed the last 12 months have also seen extensive consultation with children and young people, as well as adults, in the development of our campaigns and resources.

This process helped considerably with our November campaign, ‘You can make a difference’.

The campaign was aimed at the people children and young people told us were most important in their lives, their real role models; members of their family, the person who runs the youth club, or the football team coach – the people who can make a difference when it comes to bullying behaviour. There are enough ‘experts’ in the world - we must support the adults in children’s everyday lives to help them make a difference.

Next year promises to be even more exciting and challenging, as we extend this support and our resources into the community in a more meaningful way. Our community engagement will bring about new partnerships and will lead to the development of new and innovative ways of reaching a wider group of people, not just those who have a ‘professional’ role to play.

We are embarking on a process of self-evaluation from April 09, which will include an evaluation of the impact we have had on stakeholders to date, and will give us a framework for the continuous improvement of the service.

I would like to say ‘thank you’ to everyone who has helped make this a successful year for respectme. We will continue to offer a fresh, innovative and challenging anti-bullying service, and we’ll play our part in making a difference in the lives of children and young people.

Brian Donnelly, Director

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CAPACITY BUILDING respectme’s generic anti-bullying training and Training for Trainers programme has been attended by over 600 adults from across Scotland in the past 12 months, taking the overall number of people trained to 1071 since the service was launched.

Demand for our ‘Policy Through to Practice’ training also remains high and we’ve trained 90 participants in the last year, including staff from Stirling Council and Doon Academy’s schools cluster.

Our training is open to all adults and we’re delighted to have had attendance from wide-ranging sections of the community, including: parents, carers, youth workers, Community Police, Campus Police, social care professionals, teachers, early years professionals, policy makers, council staff, foster carers and childminders.

The coming year will see an exciting expansion of our antibullying training programme, with specific events focusing on cyberbullying and homophobic bullying (in partnership with LGBT Youth Scotland). Parents and carers will also receive tailored training as part of our community engagement work.

Full details of our new training calendar will be available on the respectme website, so check back for updates!

As well as developing our generic training calendar, we continue to respond to specific requests from organisations to provide and deliver training as they begin the process of policy development or review. For example, in the coming months we are delivering training to staff at South Ayrshire Council to support the launch of its anti-bullying guidance for schools and nurseries, which was developed with respectme. We’re also delivering an extensive anti-bullying training programme (via Training for Trainers) to staff across a range of departments in Renfrewshire Council, including Children’s Services.

We were delighted to be invited to deliver tailored anti-bullying workshops at a diverse and varied range of partner organisations’ conferences in the last year, and this is something we will continue to do in the coming year.

A ‘Prejudice-Based Bullying and the Early Years’ workshop delivered at the Scottish Childminding Association’s conference led to demand for tailored training for childminders, and evening events have since taken place in Clackmannanshire, Dundee and Falkirk.

Bernie Scotland, SCMA Childminding Development Officer, took part in ‘Training for Trainers’ and has since delivered training to dozens of colleagues:

“It was a very enlightening course, which I have now delivered to childminders in venues in Edinburgh, West Lothian, Scottish Borders and Midlothian.

“A total of 45 childminders came to the sessions, some thinking they knew about bullying and some who, honestly, said they had never experienced it. The childminders found it very interesting and helpful and also found that, because they are required by law to have policies and procedures in place, some of them had included anti-bullying statements in other policies, so are ahead of other workplaces which had no policy in place.”

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South Lanarkshire Council’s residential care workers attended ‘Training for Trainers’ and are now rolling out our ‘It’s Never Acceptable’ training across their community.

“The experience of the respectme training for trainers was a positive one for all the workers involved. It has helped provide a platform that enables SLC to deliver regular training to all staff who are in direct contact with our accommodated young people.

Anti-bullying practice and knowledge has been given a high priority status by the council for ‘front line’ staff, and we plan to roll out the training over the coming months. To date 75 workers have been trained.

While the subject matter is not specifically directed at children’s homes, the principles are the same when identifying and responding to bullying behaviour, and the training has been a positive addition to the materials already available.

I have suggested that respectme training is made compulsory in all staff’s Performance Development Reviews (PDR). If this is in place then managers have a responsibility to ensure the training is made available to all of their staff. It will also play a vital role in the development of safe care in each house.

The Anti-Bullying Policy for SLC will also be reviewed and discussions will take place throughout the houses. It is envisaged that this will take place once all staff have gone through the training programme.

I have been heartened by the attitude of the workers attending the training and the input they have had.

It is clear that many of them are already knowledgeable about bullying behaviours, but the training forum enables that existing knowledge to be put into a format that will be beneficial in their daily practice. It has raised their awareness of the impact our responses have at critical times. It has also helped me in my role to have a better overview in areas that require more attention with regards to some of the practice when dealing with bullying behaviour.”

Brian Sweeney (South Lanarkshire Council) Depute Manager, Children’s House, Carluke

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POLICY THROUGH TO PRACTICE… GETTING IT RIGHT Policy development and review remains central to our work, and in the past year we have seen a significant rise in demand for support and assistance in this area.

The outcomes we achieve directly support the Scottish Government’s strategic priorities - specifically the aspirations of ‘Curriculum for Excellence’ - and the guiding principles which underpin our policy development work are based on the provisions made in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).

The journey of policy through to practice should be consultative and involve stakeholders throughout. This approach can have a bigger impact by helping to establish shared values, and leading everyone involved to invest in the process and take responsibility for its implementation.

At a strategic level, we are working with 16 of Scotland’s local authorities - ten of whom approached us for support during the last six months. We are delighted to be working with these partners to provide a bespoke service, based around their needs and required level of involvement.

The policy review undertaken with Scotland’s Colleges last year is now at final draft stage, with a launch event planned for June 2009. The reach of this new template policy – “Being Respectful While Working and Learning” - is impressive, and its content reflects the effort, energy and enthusiasm of everyone involved. This policy will help address some of the challenges associated with increasing numbers of young students in college settings, recognising the diversity of their needs, and the range of responses required to meet them.

“I would like to acknowledge the work that respectme have done on this. They have provided an excellent professional service and it has been much appreciated.”

Moira Shemilt, Lead Specialist : Access, Scotland’s Colleges Individual schools continue to contact us regularly for support and advice. Again, we have been able to tailor training, support and guidance to help these schools produce policies which reflect and address local concerns.

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“SAMH is very proud to be a leading partner of respectme.

The core values and drive the service brings are fundamental to its success and SAMH will continue to offer every support to achieve the aims of respectme”.

Billy Watson, Chief Executive, SAMH

Case Study : South Ayrshire Council In August 2008, respectme was invited to join in a multiagency Policy Review Working Group being led by South Ayrshire Council. The Group’s purpose was to produce guidelines on anti-bullying strategies, and provide a framework for all South Ayrshire schools and early years establishments. This work was informed by a survey carried out in December 2008 and provided baseline data against which improvements can be measured.

Since then, a wealth of work has been completed resulting in the publication of a comprehensive guide for parents, pupils, teachers and support staff, which will be formally launched in May 2009.

We are delighted to have been associated with the development of this policy, and we highly commend the leadership, positive approach and collaboration model which contributed to such a successful outcome.

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YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE CAMPAIGN Anti-Bullying Week in November saw the launch of our campaign, ‘You can make a difference’.

The purpose of the campaign was to examine the crucial role that adults play when it comes to bullying behaviour, and how they can make a difference through role modelling and their responses to bullying behaviour. We wanted to highlight the fact that adults can make a difference when it comes to bullying behaviour in a way which engaged them, while providing them with the information and tools to support them.

We had a clear idea of how we wanted to convey the key campaign messages but we held focus groups with adults and children & young people which informed the way forward.

Adults told us that they didn’t want to feel judged or be made to feel guilty; they wanted to see ‘real’ people that they could relate to, and an upbeat and inspiring message.

Children and young people told us that they wanted adults to be encouraged to do more of the right things that make a difference, rather than being made to feel bad about the things they get wrong.

They wanted positive messages about role modelling to represent the message they want to communicate to adults.

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Given the broad theme of the campaign message, we listened to feedback from previous campaigns and the information gathered from the focus groups, and decided to explore cinema advertising for the first time. We also ran a two-week campaign on Real Radio, which included presenter ‘talkups’ and campaign posters were sent to schools, registered services, libraries and GP surgeries across Scotland.

The cinema advert featured a parent, teacher, lollipop man and sports coach, to further illustrate the point that it’s the adults that children and young people see everyday that can make a real difference when it comes to bullying behaviour.

The advert was screened in 187 Cineworld, Odeon and independent cinemas across Scotland, reaching an audience of 239,713. It can be viewed on respectme’s You Tube channel: www.youtube.co.uk/respectmescotland

“I became aware of respectme through a cinema ad in Edinburgh at the weekend and took the cue to check out your website. I’d like to say that I think the whole idea is fantastic and it’s long overdue that some serious effort was put in to tackling the heartbreaking situations which the bullying problem creates.

‘You can make a difference’ is the most practical and helpful guide to bullying which I have seen for some time.

The presentation is clear, the language is straightforward and the advice is both helpful and practical. I am confident that the booklet will prove to be of great value to parents and carers alike.

Mr Bryan Lewis, Headmaster, The Mary Erskine and Stewart’s Melville Junior School Campaign materials and copies of ‘You can make a difference’ can be downloaded from the respectme website: www.respectme.org.uk

“….congratulations on a good website and best wishes for a successful ad campaign that generates lots of responses like mine.” – email received during the campaign It was important that we didn’t just highlight the need for adults to act, but we gave them the practical advice and guidance to help them do so. ‘You can make a difference – A practical guide for parents and carers’ expands on the information contained within respectme’s ‘Pointers for Parents’ leaflet. The booklet provides advice and guidance on identifying and addressing bullying behaviour and goes into more detail about the importance of listening and keeping channels of communication open with everyone involved.

We’ve been inundated with requests for the booklet and we’ve sent out around 35,000 copies to date.

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WHAT BULLYING MEANS TO ME

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Anti-bullying Week competition winners were celebrated in style this year at an event hosted by respectme and the Scottish Government at the Mansfield Traquair in Edinburgh.

> 9-11 Age Category - Class P5 of Newhills Primary

This year’s competition invited children and young people to submit entries based around the theme, ‘what bullying means to me’. We were overwhelmed by the high standard of the 3,000 entries we received, which ranged from poems and posters to short films and drama - the creativity, time and effort put in to all entries was clear to see. Our thanks go to everyone who entered and congratulations go to the winners who received their prizes from the then Minister for Schools & Skills, Maureen Watt:

> Age 12-16 Category - The senior group at Our Lady

School, Aberdeen who produced an animation explaining how being bullied made them feel. and St Patrick’s High School, Dumbarton. The group produced a short film on the experiences of a young girl being bullied.

> Additional Support Needs Category - A group of

children from Craighead School, South Lanarkshire.

The group developed a poster depicting a football team of emotions where each player had an emotion above his head.

Some of the winning videos can be viewed on the respectme You Tube channel: www.youtube.co.uk/respectmescotland

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ONE MILLION AND COUNTING...

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The respectme website remains a hive of activity, with over one million web hits and 12,000 unique visitors in the past 12 months. It continues to attract an audience from across the globe, and links to the respectme site now feature on a number of organisational websites in countries including Australia and Germany.

In keeping with the way that people now view and share information, we have also developed a respectme YouTube channel, which showcases some really thought-provoking videos – including the winning film and animation entries from the Anti-Bullying Week competition. Visit our channel at www.youtube.co.uk/respectmescotland

The respectme online community has grown in the last year with the introduction of our new discussion forum, which gives visitors the opportunity to share their experiences and views on a number of bullying-related issues in Scotland. If you haven’t already visited the forum, log on to the ‘myresepectme’ section and tell us what you think.

We will continue to listen to your views on the website and how it’s used to communicate at an individual and organisational level. To tell us what you think, email: enquire@respectme.org.uk

A number of new features have been added to ‘myrespectme’, including a series of videos which can be downloaded and used by our trainers who deliver respectme training in their organisations and the wider community. The three videos provide; an introduction to respectme; examples of good anti-bullying practice, including natural consequences, values, visual prompts and peer mediation; and a range of case studies for trainers to discuss with delegates. Our e-learning resources will also continue to grow in the coming year. The ‘myrespectme’ section is available to all visitors to the website so be sure to visit to see what’s on offer.

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CONFERENCE TIME! Our 2009 conference echoed the theme of our campaign, exploring ‘You can make a difference’ through a series of presentations and workshops. We were joined at Murrayfield Stadium by over 200 delegates, ranging from parents, carers, teachers and social workers to youth workers, community and campus police officers, childminders and policy makers.

The involvement of children and young people was central to the day and we were fortunate to be joined by a number of creative and enthusiastic young people who were invaluable to the day’s proceedings.

Skot Hogg-Robertson, a 19 year-old student from West Lothian, gave a very personal account of the homophobic bullying he experienced at school, while Hannah Young, a Princess Diana Anti-Bullying Award holder, spoke about the ‘Pupils Help Pupils’ group she was part of at school.

The afternoon session saw a very moving and thoughtprovoking drama presentation from pupils at St Margaret Mary’s High School in Castlemilk, which explored the notion of ‘fear and respect’. The students developed the play in conjunction with respectme and the subsequent script and discussion topics will be developed into an online resource which can be used with young people in schools, youth groups and other settings.

The day’s proceedings were recorded by students from Our Lady & St Patrick’s High School in Dumbarton who filmed key parts of the conference and interviewed delegates to get their thoughts on the day and bullying issues in general.

The students were also winners in the Anti-Bullying Week competition and their winning short film was shown as part of the conference.

A full conference report outlining the day’s aims and key outcomes is available on the respectme website, together with the video diary produced by students at Our Lady & St Patrick’s.

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Addressing the conference David Denton, chair of SAMH, referred to a time (in the “old days”) when he was playing a team sport. A ball went up in the air and he and his fellow defender both shouted ‘yours’. Neither took it and the ball fell between them allowing the opposition to score easily.

“My challenge to you is this. When it comes to bullying behaviour, the ball is in the air. Shout ‘MINE!’ Claim the problem. Don’t wait for someone else to deal with it.

Take ownership of the situation and be the person who can make a difference.”

“Drama presentation was inspiring. Should be bottled & sold globally! Excellent!!!”

“Personal stories & performances from young people were very moving & brought colour to the day.”

“A fantastic day - well planned extremely varied!

Well done - thanks - look forward to it next year!!”

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WORKING TOGETHER TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE 16

ENABLE Scotland ENABLE Scotland’s ‘Speak Up’ report revealed that 93% of children with learning disabilities had experienced bullying behaviour. Sadly, 38% said telling an adult made no difference.

ENABLE Scotland and respectme received funding from the LloydsTSB Foundation for Scotland to create a web-based resource for adults who play a role in the lives of children with learning disabilities who experience bullying behaviour. www.enablemescotland.info provides adults with the knowledge and skills to recognise bullying behaviour and gives them practical guidance to address it, wherever it arises.

Care Commission We will be working in partnership with the Care Commission and others to help develop guidelines which will enable Care Commission officers to focus on anti-bullying as a specific area in their inspection of children’s services in 2010.

“The management partnership has been vital in shaping the progress of respectme. Proactively addressing the mental health impact of bullying, the stigma bullying can bring and the challenges of ensuring equality and inclusion in Scotland are core to our vision for the service.”

SAMH – Charlie McMillan, Director of Research, Influence & Change

“Young people need to know that bullying will be taken seriously and dealt with sensitively by the adults in their lives, that’s why the ‘You can make a difference’ message has been such an important part of the work of respectme over the last year. There is lots of work still to do and I’m very excited about the year ahead for the service.”

LGBT Youth Scotland – Fergus McMillan, Chief Executive

“The Scottish Anti-Bullying Steering Group (SABS) brings together key players at national level whose role involves addressing bullying. The group is pulling together an overview of anti-bullying work in Scotland in order to coordinate future developments and move forward together on this key issue.”

Scottish Anti-Bullying Steering Group – Alison Davies, Chair 17

YOU HAVE MADE A DIFFERENCE Since respectme was established two years ago, our stakeholders have provided invaluable input and direction into a number of the training and promotional activities we have undertaken. In the last 12 months alone you have made a difference in the following ways:

Campaigns All of our campaigns have been developed in line with focus group feedback from parents, carers, professionals and children and young people themselves. From cyberbullying through to our most recent ‘You can make a difference’ campaign, we’ve learned valuable lessons about the language, types of images and the key messages we use to make sure that we’re engaging with the people we’re trying to reach. Through this valuable input, we have been confident that the key messages and overall ‘feel’ of our campaigns have reflected exactly how our stakeholders want them to look and sound.

Drama We worked with staff and students at St Margaret Mary’s school in Castlemilk to develop a drama presentation, based on the notion of ‘fear and respect’, that will be translated into a resource that can be used by other organisations. After an initial meeting where we discussed ideas and gave the group a ‘steer’ on the type of production we were looking for, we left them to their creative devices and were delighted with what they put together. The drama was showcased at our conference in February and the resulting resource will be available in the ‘myrespectme’ section of our website.

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You can make a difference – a guide for parents and carers One of our most successful publications to date is our ‘You can make a difference’ booklet, which we’ve been inundated with requests for since it was launched in November. The booklet was developed from our ‘Pointers for Parents’ leaflet, based on feedback we received from parents and carers who were looking for more detail in a readily available resource.

The new publication builds on the information contained in the leaflet and was informed through consultation with a range of adults.

So thank you for the impact and input you’ve had to date.

We look forward to receiving more feedback in the coming year, but if you have something to share now, please feel free to contact us via: enquire@respectme.org.uk

key facts > 56 training events have been delivered across Scotland in the last 12 months > The respectme website has received over 1.2 million hits and has been visited by people in over 42 countries worldwide > We have had requests for over 30,000 copies of ‘You can make a difference – A Practical Guide for Parents and Carers’ since November 08

> 113 people are now trained to deliver respectme training in their organisations and communities > Our cinema advert reached an audience of 239,713 across Scotland > respectme has provided feedback on 14 anti-bullying policies from local authorities and other organisations across Scotland since August 08 > We have distributed over 11,000 copies of ‘Cyberbullying…Are you switched on?’ in the past 12 months

*last 12 months is year from 1 April 08 - 31 March 09 19

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