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One in 13 school children have experienced cyberbullying research claims – how can mentoring help?
15 February 2012MBF welcomes this second study from Beatbullying into the extent of cyberbullying among children, young people and teachers in the UK as it helps to assess the impact of the problem and shape appropriate solutions.
MBF’s experience of providing training to schools to support the setting up of peer mentoring programmes to tackle bullying and other issues has shown the many benefits that peer support strategies have within the Education sector. Read more about MBF’s National Peer Mentoring Anti-Bullying Pilot and more about our training courses in setting up peer support schemes and training peer supporters in schools and colleges.
This latest research from Beatbullying reveals that 28% of 11-to-16-year-olds have been targeted through the use of mobile phones or the internet. And on average, nominated teachers are spending six hours per week dealing with cases of cyberbullying, indicating that nearly £18m of the education budget may be spent on dealing with cases of cyberbullying per year.
The research proposes the following recommendations:
- Service Providers (e.g. social networking sites, mobile phone networks) must do more to protect their users.
- Service providers must work more closely with the organisations dealing with the consequences of cyberbullying that is taking place through their services, providing both support and funding.
- All schools must develop and implement an anti-bullying strategy.
- Refocus campaigns to raise awareness and educate young people about how to deal with cyberbullying.
- Government must recognise the damage caused by bullying, and support proven anti-bullying programmes.
