Upstander and Anti-Bullying Resources
published 2/4/20; updated 7/21/22 [I’ve fixed or removed broken links.]
image by Wokandapix from Pixabay
Catharine Hannay, founder of MindfulTeachers.org
Here is a collection of resources to help parents, teachers, and school leaders thoughtfully and effectively respond to bullying.
Teaching Resources
The research on effective and ineffective programs shows that it isn't enough to just do a one-day anti-bullying program. Depending on the age of your students, the following activities could be useful as part of a thoughtfully-considered overall SEL/kindness/anti-bullying approach:
Anti-Bullying Coloring Pages, from It's Ingenious
WeAreTeachers.com has free downloadable posters and lesson plans to Help Every Kid Become an Upstander. (no charge, but you do need to provide a name and email address.)
Research and Advice on Bullying Prevention
A good place to start might be with the Key Points About Bullying outlined by NJbullying.org, based on the work of researcher Stan Davis.
Also see Is It Bullying or Not? How to Make Sure Your School Community Understands the Difference from We Are Teachers
StopBullyingNow.com has guidelines for common situations, like:
how to help a child who is being bullied;how to help a child who is mistreating others;how to help a child who is distressed after witnessing mean peer behavior.
Everlast Recovery has "Complete Guide to Bullying in the Modern Age," which includes:
common types of bullying;risk factors for bullying; effects of bullying;tips for preventing and responding to bullying;tips for parents who believe their children are bullying others; and information about workplace bullying/bullying of adults.
The Office of Justice Programs has a School-Based Bullying Prevention Guide, including:
conducting a needs assessment;doing supportive research;getting stakeholder buy-in; and ensuring long-term sustainability.
Human interaction, SEL in curriculum key to curbing cyberbullying, from EducationDive.com, features 2018 National Teacher of the Year Mandy Manning.
Bystanders are Essential to Bullying Prevention and Intervention, from StopBullying.gov, has useful information about why bystanders do or don't intervene when they witness bullying.
How to Stop Bullying in Schools: What Works, What Doesn't, from Today.com, includes a lot of useful links, including an article about moms bullying each other. (That may sound incredible, but I know someone who was basically shunned by other moms at her daughter's school because she 'didn't fit in'/was less affluent.)
The Anti-Defamation League has useful information about effective and ineffective programs:
Misdirections in Bullying Prevention and Intervention (explaining why many well-intentioned anti-bullying programs don't work or can even make the situation worse).
OCALI has links to anti-bullying programs and curricula. (I don't endorse any particular program.)
KiVa Program's Parents' Guide is a 36-page ebook with information that would be useful for teachers and school leaders as well as parents.
brief talk about bullying by expert Stan Davis
(5 minutes)
He also has a guide for kids at StopBullyingnow.com
(scroll down to "I want to help myself.")
Anti-Bullying Programs: What Works
Dr. John Carosso (3 minutes)
This is part of a seven-part series
of brief videos about bullying.
This is just a small selection of the anti-bullying videos available on youtube. I've included four more upstander videos in the Thought-Provoking Videos About Empathy, Compassion, and Service.
You may also be interested in the song playlists and video playlists about kindness, compassion, and service, as well as Community Service Projects, Pre-K Through College.
And there are many more resources for teaching kindness, compassion, and social-emotional learning at Teaching Resources page, including Case Studies in Microaggression, Empathy, and Mindful Speech.