Effective school-based bullying prevention practices and strategies send these messages to students and to the whole school community:
- Everyone has the right to be safe, strong and free.
- All forms of cruelty, exploitation, domination, humiliation and abuse represent a negative form of power and control.
- Abuse is never the fault or the responsibility of the person who is targeted.
- Young people – and all people – have the right to live without violence and abuse in all spheres of their lives.
- Adults can be important resources for children and teens, providing support and playing an active and constructive role in protecting them against abuse.
- It is important and necessary to break the secrecy surrounding abuse and to tell someone about it.
- There are positive alternatives to abusive behaviour.
Within our schools and classrooms, we can make sure to transmit the content and the intent of these messages consistently and coherently. By adopting a committed, ongoing and global approach to bullying prevention, integrating the principles of equity and inclusive education, we make links between bullying, inequity and exclusion and foster real and lasting change.
As citizens, we can also seek to broaden the scope of our role as allies, as we move through our communities and the different contexts of our lives. When we work towards preventing bullying within our schools, or any other institution, location, setting or community, we are aiming for the creation of an equitable and inclusive world. This work is connected to a worldwide movement aimed at ensuring respect for all human rights for all people. Whether we are teachers or other school staff working within a school, citizens in the community, or any other context, our goals remain clear when we remember that bigger picture.