Brighter Futures Celebrating the powerful impact of BullyingCanada donors 4 Brighter Futures • 2023 • BullyingCanada BullyingCanada celebrates 16 years of helping bullied kids Specialized bullying intervention gives kids better support Dear BullyingCanada, Last year I was bullied all the time at school. My stomach hurt every day and I couldn’t sleep. In class, I couldn’t focus so my grades tanked. I’m so glad my parents suggested I text you. Support Responder Chris worked with my teachers and principal for a couple of months to get my bullies to leave me alone. This year, my grades are way up! And I’m super happy because I’m not being picked on any more!!! You guys are the best. Thanks for your help!! Brandon Helping Brandon to smile again Thanks to the outstanding ongoing generosity of our donors, BullyingCanada is celebrating 16 years of giving Canadian bullied youth a brighter future. In 2006, Rob Benn- Frenette and Katie Thompson (Neu), two teenagers who could find no one to help stop their bullies from relentlessly torturting them, created BullyingCanada.ca , a website to help bullied kids support each other. The site also distributed information about bullying and tips on how to handle bullies. In 2011, after becoming a Canadian registered charity, Rob led the growth into becoming a bilingual 24/7/365 support service that coaches Canadian bullied kids. With expertise on bullying intervention, BullyingCanada’s volunteer Support Responders and professional Counsellors uniquely stick with bullied kids until we find a way to negotiate an end to their being bullied Last fall, BullyingCanada Co- Founder and Executive Director Rob Benn-Frenette hopped on the helpline, which he does periodically to keep up with issues affecting kids. In tears, 14-year-old Lori explained how four classmates were making her life hell. She explained how she first phoned another helpline but hung up during a long automated message stating how they’d store and access her information. She shared with Rob, “When I called BullyingCanada, after a short message about how my call may be monitored or recorded to train new volunteers, you answered right away. You put me at ease and I felt I could openly talk to you about what was going on.” Lori explained that her problems began when mean kids saw her eating hard-boiled eggs for lunch. For months, they taunted her about having an egg fetish, putting eggs in her gym shoes, book bag, locker and seat in class. Then they started texting her about loving eggs, and bugging her outside of school as well. Lori began sleeping poorly, and developed regular stomach aches. Her bullies took the abuse to another level, creating a Facebook page using Lori’s name, photos and phone number, offering Lori’s sexual services to her classmates – male and female – for free. Lori was humiliated by every ugly call she received, and every mortifying comment posted. Under Rob’s direction, Lori formally asked Facebook to remove the fake page. Rob also called her school Principal and local police about Lori being harassed, with Lori proving her woes by sharing the awful texts she received, and the fake Facebook page. Ten days later, Lori phoned Rob again on a direct line he gave to her – a practice we started in 2021 for every bullied youth requiring follow-up support. Lori told Rob that mean texts kept coming, and that the Facebook page was still active. He contacted the RCMP who can’t force Facebook to delete a page, but who did firmly ask for their cooperation. It finally was deleted. Facebook explained they did so mainly b ecause it featured an underage girl offering her sexual services. With Rob’s coaching, her school disciplined her bullies and they finally left Lori alone. Rob gave Lori advice on how to handle bullies, should she ever be bothered again. She warmly thanked him, and is grateful knowing that she can phone BullyingCanada again, at any time. This process can take weeks or months of us working one-on- one with the youth and their family. In 2022, we answered 812,275 cries for help - which is 6.5 times the number of contacts we had in pre-pandemic 2019. Confirming the aching need for our services, last year our website was visited more than 282.3 million times. Brighter Futures Editor: Rob Benn-Frenette Writer & Designer: Marlena McCarthy © BullyingCanada 2023 BullyingCanada 471 Smythe St., P.O. Box 27009, Fredericton, New Brunswick, E3B 9M1 1-877-352-4497 (toll-free) Info@BullyingCanada.ca Charitable Registration # 82991 7897 RR 0001 With donor support, we helped Lori to be happy again 2023 Update Call volume has increased 6.5 times compared to pre-pandemic 2019 2 Brighter Futures • 2023 • BullyingCanada Brighter Futures • 2023 • BullyingCanada 3 Bullying is crippling kids’ mental health The need for our vital support lifeline is at an all-time high Offering comprehensive support unavailable anywhere else • In 2022, BullyingCanada answered 812,275 terri fi ed calls for help from bullied kids and adults who care about them. This is 6.5 times more contacts than we received in pre-pandemic 2019. • 28 2 million people visited BullyingCanada.ca in 2022 • BullyingCanada.ca is available in 104 languages • 107 minutes : Average time a Support Responder spends on the phone with a bullied youth. • 67 minutes: Average time a Support Responder spends on a texting support session. Bullying of kids has never been more severe. Beyond shoving and name-calling, bullying now includes death threats, gang assaults, and public humiliation over the Internet (“cyberbullying”). Some parents feel their bullied kid should just “suck it up”, and bullying will make their kid stronger in the long run. Research has proved this wrong. In our experience, we have more kids than ever telling us they are considering suicide to end the pain caused by extreme bullying. Bullying’s immediate and long- term effects on kids include 1 : • Decreased self-esteem & confidence • Depression, anxiety & mood disorders • Substance abuse • Feeling isolated & lonely • Stomach & headaches • School truancy & falling grades • Poor peer relationships • Thinking of, attempting or committing suicide. In particular, cyberbullying is uniquely associated with causing mental health and academic problems. Its victims are twice as likely to attempt suicide. 2 LGBTQ2S students are four times more likely to be cyberbullied than heterosexual youth. 3 Kids with disabilities are more victimized by their peers. Angry and frustrated people view them as easy targets. Some school bullies who are never stopped carry their abuse of power into adult relationships, engaging in workplace harass- ment, dating aggression, intimate partner violence, and child and senior abuse. 5 BullyingCanada’s interventions can return peace to bullied kids, and help to steer bullies towards more positive behaviour. 1 Bowes, L. et al., 2013. Chronic bullying victimiza- tion across school transitions, Development and Psychopathology, pp 333-346. 2 Hinduja & Patchin, 201 3 Campbell & Taylor, 2021, Egale Canada, Still in Every Class in Every School report 4 Vaillancourt et al., 2010, Statistics Canada, 2016 5 Hymel & Swearer, 2015, Four decades of research on school bullying. American Psychologist, 70, pp 293-299. Donor dollars ensure our services are available 24/7/365 Sometimes, a bullied kid only needs some tips on how to handle a bully. They visit our website, or contact our Empowerment and Mental Health Support Network for some expert advice. But more and more, we are having kids who have been so brutally bullied by others that they have lost all hope of ever being happy again. They aren’t sleeping well. They can’t focus in class and their grades are slipping. They have persistent headaches and stomaches from the stress of constantly looking over their shoulder for the next attack. Or, bullies have convinced other kids to deny their victim from sitting with anyone at lunch, or inviting them to any social or sporting activities. Sadly, more youth than ever are approaching us admitting they are considering suicide to end their pain. For kids at the end of their rope, we offer one-on-one coaching and counselling. If the child’s life is at immediate risk, we will contact local police or paramedics, as needed. If the bullying is happening at school, we contact the youth’s teachers, principal and guidance counsellor to help us identify the bullies, negotiate an end to them bullying their victim, and ensure the bully is disciplined. We find out if the school has a bullying policy and knows how to effectively enforce it. We will contact the local school board to ensure all schools in their area have bullying policies. We will coach the youth’s parents on how to support their kid. If the bullying victim is suicidal or is admitting to potentially lethal self-harm, they are immediately transferred to a professional counsellor trained in suicide intervention. After we find a way to end the bullying of the youth, if we know the kid needs help to heal from the trauma of being violently bullied, we also provide free counselling. We need your help to ensure we can help every bullied kid who desperately needs us BullyingCanada depends on ongoing assistance from volunteers, and the kindness of individuals and organiza- tions to make tax-receiptable donations and gifts in kind to keep our vital services open 24/7. Because bullying has crushing long-term effects on kids, and our specialized service goes far beyond any others to help give bullied kids a brighter future, we hope you can make a donation to support our life-saving work. Thank you! 47% of Canadian parents report having a child who is a victim of bullying. 4