News Releases
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASENovember 8, 2007
International Bullying Prevention Expert "Not Surprised" Finnish Student was Bullied
SEATTLE, WA — Students who are bullied at school are at increased risk for hurting themselves and other students, according to Joan Cole Duffell, Interim Executive Director of Committee for Children, an international nonprofit organization that focuses on preventing violence and bullying in schools around the world.
Duffell’s comments come in response to the AP report that the student in Tuusula, Finland, who killed eight people then turned the gun on himself, was bullied by other students.
"Bullying can have devastating effects on kids," says Duffell. "Often children who are bullied become depressed or anxious, and may show reluctance to attend school, all of which leads to academic and social problems. In rare cases such as the tragic incident in Finland and those we’ve seen in the U.S., kids who are bullied resort to extreme measures such as suicide and homicide. For all of these reasons, it’s vital that schools take proactive steps to address and prevent bullying, starting in the elementary grades."
Committee for Children, a Seattle-based nonprofit, is a leading research and development organization in the fields of child abuse prevention, violence prevention, social and emotional learning, and bullying prevention. The organization’s programs garner top ratings from the U.S. Departments of Education, Health and Justice for showing strong evidence of effectiveness in changing student behavior.
Committee for Children programs are implemented by over 25,000 schools across North America, and the organization works with in-country partners in fourteen countries outside of the U.S. to bring translated and culturally adapted versions to schools throughout the world. Committee for Children programs train educators and parents in prevention strategies, as well as teach social and emotional skills to students, to prevent violent and aggressive behavior and to foster a more respectful, caring school climate.
"Our organization has been working with education and research partners in Scandinavia for over fifteen years, and a translated version of our violence prevention curriculum was just recently introduced to kindergarten children in Finnish elementary schools," says Duffell. Committee for Children’s partner organization in Finland, Akat Psychology, is focused on bringing Committee for Children’s SECOND STEP violence prevention program to Finnish schools under the title Askeleittain. "The school shooting in Tuusula has been a huge a shock for our partners—indeed, all parents and educators—in Europe, most especially those in Finland and other parts of Scandinavia," says Duffell. “Many educators in other countries believe that school shootings are a U.S.-specific phenomenon. This news must be earth-shattering to them, just as we feel so completely shaken when school shootings happen here.”
Two separate U.S. studies found strong links between student bullying and incidents of school shootings: “Bruised Inside,” a report of the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG), April 2000; and “The Safe Schools Initiative,” from the U.S. Secret Service and Department of Education, May 2002. The NAAG Task Force on School and Campus Safety, in a new report published in September 2007, recommends that schools “continue to implement and expand efforts to prevent bullying, including cyber bullying” in order to prevent school violence.
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