Notice of Board Nominations
The Board of Directors for the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association is elected every two years. Nominations for Board of Director positions are due by December 15th, 2012. Elections will be held in January 2013. The new Board assumes its responsibilities in May, 2013.
Please visit CCPA’s website in the Governance/Board of Directors Area to download the Nomination Form for the 2013-2015 Board.
Prevention and Tolerance: A Counsellor’s Guide to Bullying
By Lina Parker
As long as there have been young people, there have been bullies. However, in the past decade the rise of the Internet and video channels such as Youtube have brought a new immediacy to the issue of bully- ing, which unfortunately affects so many children and young adults in this country. Images of young people being victimized by violence–and stories of the often tragic result of this harassment–have captured the public’s attention. The media campaign known as “It Gets Better” and the forthcom- ing release of the film Bully have kept the issue in the national conversation.
Bullying is many things to many people. The generally agreed upon definition, as formu- lated by Dan Olweus, a pioneering research- er on the subject of bullying, is aggressive or threatening behavior that a) is intended to cause harm, b) occurs over an extended period of time, and c) reflects an imbalance of power between the involved parties. Bul- lying can take many forms; it can also affect all types of people, from the stereotypical “geek” to the most popular kid on campus. There are steps that schools, communities, and individuals can take to combat bullying, one of which is simply addressing the prob- lem. As more research emerges, it’s becom- ing clear that anti-bullying measures can work. And in many cases, these measures might make a real difference in the life of a child.
Most of us have seen the shocking images: children beaten up while bystanders do nothing to intervene, instead filming the
whole scene on a cell phone camera. Other news stories show young adults who have changed schools or, in the most extreme cases, taken their own lives because of per- sistent harassment from their schoolmates. Almost everyone has experienced bullying at one time or another, if not as a participant then as an observer, or a victim. The videos that have made the rounds on the internet and the nightly news cast have caused both young people and adults to take notice.
Bullying Facts and Figures The facts about bullying are stark: a 2009 survey of high school students showed that 20% of high school students reported be- ing bullied on school property in the twelve months preceding the survey. Schools themselves also reported widespread bul- lying: 25% of them dealt with bullying on a weekly or daily basis in the 2007-2008 school year, with middle schools reporting the most. Boys are slightly more likely to be victimized by bullying than girls, and more likely to suffer from physical bullying than girls. So-called cyber bullying was reported by about 4% of students in 2007, yet most reports show that the vast majority of bully- ing still occurs on school grounds. Students who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgendered (LGBT) seem to be at particu- lar risk. One study of 7,261 students in 2009 found that nearly 85% of LGBT students reported being verbally harassed, 40% reported being physically harassed, and 19% reported being physically assaulted at school in the past year because of their sexual orientation.
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