Please be aware of the Cyber Mentors website – this is the site that all students have access to via their student portal at http://www.neale-wade.net/. If any student wants a safe social networking site or expresses a need to talk to someone they can use this site directly. We have trained cybermentors in the College but the site goes beyond just Neale-Wade – it is a nationally recognised site. Please see the contents of the most recent Beatbullying UK newsletter – the driving force addressing the ever growing problem of cyberbullying.

February 2010

“You can speak out now”

On 14 January, we launched an uncompromising £1.2m advertising campaign for CyberMentors, depicting a teenage girl sewing her mouth closed to symbolise the way victims feel silenced by bullies. Our partnership with Google saw the advert, produced by award winning agency M&C Saatchi, go live on YouTube’s homepage, where it’s already been watched over 100,000 times. A poster campaign has started on billboards in cities and schools nationwide, whilst the advert will shortly be shown in cinemas thanks to another partnership with Pearl & Dean.

The advert called for children to seek help and visit cybermentors.org.uk – and within 10 days of its launch online, over 17,000 young people had done exactly that.

However, the advert was refused permission to air on TV by Clearcast, causing much debate and some fierce responses from a lot of people, encouraging us to appeal against the decision. On 27 January, the issue reached the House of Commons, where the Rt Hon Anne Maguire MP tabled an EDM calling on Clearcast to reconsider its decision to ban. And on 3rd February, Clearcast thankfully lifted the ban. So even with a post-watershed limit, we are confident of reaching millions of young people to encourage them to speak out against bullying.

Finally, whilst we’re on the subject of advertising, look out for a range of CyberMentor posters that have just gone up in JD Sports outlets across the UK!

“Click Bullying into Touch”

Beatbullying’s “Click Bullying into Touch” campaign with the News of the World continues to go from strength to strength, with features running weekly. We are demanding a firm response from the social networking industry and a formalisation of intent by all political parties to rise to the challenge of protecting our children from bullying and child-on-child violence.

We are asking for:
• Social Networking Sites to take responsibility for offensive posts and work to remove them within 6 hours
• Senior teachers to be appointed in schools to take responsibility for anti-bullying policy and be a single point of contact for families
• Funded anti-bullying policy to be a fixture in all political party manifestos
• A Schools’ Safety Bill making it against the law to bully a pupil or teacher in or around school

Thousands of people have already signed up, including organisations such as Action for Children, Barnardos, YouTube, the NUS, The Children’s Legal Centre, Facebook, The National Self Harm Network and the National Autistic Society. If you want to join them, if you believe Children have a right to a life free from violence, then show your support now and sign up.

Safer Internet Day 2010

Safer Internet Day this year falls on the 9th February. It’s an important date in the calendar this year as cyberbullying is an increasing problem for many young people. We have worked hard throughout 2009 to support our sector friends in raising awareness of internet safety, and this year we have developed two new lesson plans with the support of our training partners Google and a poster with our partners CEOP.

Follow the SID link on our home page to find the resources.

And as if we weren’t busy enough…

Just a few weeks into 2010, and Beatbullying has already seen the arrival of many new faces! We have a new counsellor focusing on LGBT bullying thanks to generous funding from Children in Need, new online counsellors and moderators, new interns and a whole new programme, Re-Sync. We signed a volunteer partnership with John Lewis, and our YouTube channel hit 1.5 million video views – 1.5 million people helping us beat bullying!