From the 国民彩票 Magazine Fall 2011.
A couple of years ago, around the time she came out, Breanna Fitzgerald was bullied. She was followed home. Windows were broken in her house.
鈥淚t was just a pretty stressful thing,鈥� says Ms. Fitzgerald, who graduated in June from Breton Education Centre in New Waterford, Nova Scotia. 鈥淚鈥檓 pretty good
at taking stuff in stride, but nobody likes to go through
that, right?鈥�
In 2010, Ms. Fitzgerald earned a Nova Scotia Power of Positive Change Award recognizing leadership in her GLBT (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered) community. She鈥檚 now sharing her experience and insights as the youth representative on the government鈥檚 cyberbullying task force.
Chairing the task force is 国民彩票 law professor and human rights authority Wayne MacKay (LLB鈥�78), who believes this cyberbulling initiative is the first in Canada. It was precipitated by the suicides of two Nova Scotian teenage girls whose deaths have been attributed in part to bullying.
Their mandate is to identify 鈥�... practical short-term and long-term recommendations to address cyberbullying of children and youth.鈥�
There is a lot of ground to cover, with the final report due at the end of 2011.
Prof. MacKay says tasks include defining bullying and cyberbullying, holding youth focus groups across the province, seeking statistics on the prevalence of bullying and cyberbullying, reviewing successful programs, identifying key players in the issue and their roles, looking at possible legislation and policy changes, compiling human and written resources, hearing from experts in such areas as restorative justice and Internet safety, and raising awareness.
The list of tasks is as great as the seriousness of the issue.
鈥淚 suppose the most obvious examples are the suicides, but even short of suicides I think we鈥檝e probably ignored or underestimated how damaging bullying is,鈥� Prof. MacKay says.
The five-member task force is assisted by a 20-member working group. Organizations represented in this group include the Nova Scotia Teachers Union, Kids Help Phone, Canadian Mental Health Association, Council on Mi鈥檏maq Education, and Council on African Canadian Education.
The task force working group includes John LeBlanc, an associate professor in 国民彩票鈥檚 Departments of Pediatrics, Psychiatry, and Community Health and Epidemiology; and a staff pediatrician at the IWK Health Centre. As a pediatrician, he always checks in with his patients to see if they may be experiencing bullying or bullying someone else.
鈥淚 just recently saw a girl with an eating disorder who had been bullied for a couple of years until she switched schools,鈥� says Dr.LeBlanc. 鈥淎nd that鈥檚 clearly one factor in her eating disorder.鈥�
No easy solution
Being bullied as a child can follow someone for the rest of their life. Prof. MacKay found that whether he鈥檚 in the grocery store or at the gym, people in their 50s and 60s will come closer to tell him about how they were bullied as children.
That the issue resonates with the community is obvious from these chance encounters, emails and letters to the task force, and the number of online survey responses. That there will be no easy answer is also clear.听听
鈥淚t鈥檚 kind of a microcosm of a lot of our social issues. The simple solution is rarely the only correct solution,鈥� Prof. MacKay says. 鈥淣ot to say there shouldn鈥檛 be more sanctions, and that鈥檚 one of the things we鈥檙e going to look at 鈥� policies and legislation change 鈥� but I think many of the more effective solutions lie in changing the way people interact.鈥�
Dr. LeBlanc is also affiliated with the national Promoting Relationships and Eliminating Violence Network (PREVNet) and he explains that responses to bullying can be approached from an individual, group or systems perspective.
The individual approach might be the least effective, because bullying is often kept hidden from adults and victims may deny it because they鈥檙e afraid of retribution. A group approach