Committee for Children Releases Free Cyber Bullying Prevention Lessons

Lessons to work with Steps to Respect bullying prevention program

SEATTLE, Nov. 16, 2010 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Committee for Children, a Seattle-based nonprofit organization that provides violence- and bullying-prevention programs to schools locally and globally, this week released free lessons online to help students and educators address cyber bullying.

The five-lesson Steps to Respect Cyber Bullying Prevention Module is designed to build on skills students learn from Steps to Respect, a bullying prevention program developed by Committee for Children.

"The root causes of bullying are the same whether children are online or on the playground, but now they have a powerful tool at their disposal that's beyond their maturity to handle, and the consequences can be dire," says Joan Cole Duffell, executive director of Committee for Children.

According to a recent independent study in California, 78 percent of the youth surveyed reported being cyber bullied, but 90 percent of them said they never reported it.

"It's horrifying enough to be bullied by 10 kids," Duffell says. "If, all of a sudden, you feel like you're being bullied by 3,000 kids, how do you get up in the morning? We need to teach kids to be good cyber citizens and apply those core social and emotional skills – including empathy, problem solving and consequential thinking – to their online lives as well."

The new cyber bullying prevention lessons – written by former Seattle educator and online safety expert Mike Donlin – include lesson scripts, family letters, and in-class and take-home activities. They cover the "three Rs of cyber bullying" and such issues as loss of control, predicting consequences, and sharing too much information.

The release of the cyber bullying lessons coincides with this week's Seventh Annual Conference of the International Bullying Prevention Association – "Challenge and Promise of the Cyberworld: Bullying Prevention in the Age of the Internet" – which runs through Wednesday in Seattle.

At the conference, Committee for Children will present findings of a recent University of Washington study showing a significant reduction in bullying behavior in schools using its Steps to Respect program compared to those that did not. The study of 32 schools, funded by the Raynier Institute & Foundation, is believed to be the largest research effort in the United States on the effects of a bullying prevention program.

To learn more about Committee for Children and its Steps to Respect bullying prevention program, visit www.preventbullying.org. For more information about the conference, go to www.stopbullyingworld.org.

About Committee for Children

Seattle-based nonprofit Committee for Children is the world's leading provider of educational programs that teach skills to prevent bullying, violence and child sexual abuse. Today, Committee for Children is helping more than 9 million students in 25,000 schools in 26 countries around the globe stay safe, respect themselves and others, succeed in school today, and build a better world tomorrow. To learn more, go to www.preventbullying.org

SOURCE Committee for Children