 This is a chance for everybody to engage with the panelists. And Kelly, where is Kelly? There you are. Thank you. I appreciate you coming up. And just in terms of some of the themes around which we could focus our questions, I'd suggest this. What more can we do than we are doing today to shift the culture and improve our response to bullying? How should schools deal with bullying behavior most appropriately? What is appropriate discipline? Is it accountability? Is it restorative justice? Where on that spectrum do we deal with bullies best? And we're also going to be welcoming questions via Twitter and through Facebook right now as well. So let's open it up. Comments, questions for our panelists. Hands up. Go ahead. Okay, my first comment I had spoken to Teresa earlier in her session and what I wanted to know in regards to the online bullying reporting, when that report goes out there, who's on the other end that's responsible for then taking action in dealing with the report and how do you decide what is most urgent at hand? And I'm sure this is going to be a really successful tool because I wish I had it when I was in high school. But when the demand does get overwhelming because this is going to take off, because this is a new route for people to take charge of what's happening in their lives, but still do it where they can do it anonymously. So I want to know when you have an excessive demand, how is this program equipped to deal with that? And would you be open to people like myself who work with youth and we are youth ourselves to be trained in being the people who are going out there and then dealing with these reports of bullying? Teresa? I think I'm going to turn this over to Minister McCray because I haven't been closely involved with the roll out of the reporting tool. Thank you very much and good question. And until it actually rolls out and we see it in use, we're not 100% sure as to how many people will embrace it. In some ways, you want it to be overly successful because that means that people are knowing about it and using it. On the other hand, it also reflects a problem in our society. School districts will have on average about three individuals who are the safe school coordinators. And then from that, they'll have to sort of clearinghouse it out to the people they feel best based on their training who can deal with circumstances. Obviously, if there's life at risk, you know, it would go probably to the police firstly. But right now, we have a lot of principals and superintendents who are actually pretty good at making sure they can triage down to the individuals who would best handle it. Police obviously are very busy doing their day-to-day work. However, this is something like it was mentioned by the officers. This is a crime. And police officers have to react accordingly when it is that situation. The website will continue to evolve and make sure that it is responsive to the needs of our young people. That's the most important thing. Go ahead. I'm sorry, I can't see names from here. It's Manpreet. Just, you know, you just said that it's a criminal act. And Sergeant, I can't, yeah, Frank, I apologize. He said that, yeah, like when you kind of underreact because you're just calling it all bullying, is it more helpful to call it what it is? Like if it's blackmail or extortion or, you know, to use those terms rather than just bullying because it's become so normalized as a term now. Who'd like to take that one on? Teresa? Yes, thank you. I think that's one of the most important points as I was referencing this morning is that I think that the reference term of bullying has become common language, which has almost allowed certain behaviors to become what I refer to as soft language. And I think we very clearly have to do a better job of assessing and calling the behavior what it is. And that has included blatant underreaction to situations that would meet the test for the criminal code. So I think it's important and imperative that we're very clear in how we assess and respond to these behaviors and identifying the behaviors as they are. You know, actually, before we go to the next, I do want to answer a little bit, add to Dawn's answer to the first question there about the online reporting tool. First, it shows my lack of nerdiness, Dave, that I confused an app with an online reporting tool. We deliberately didn't build it as an app because we don't want young people to be walking around with an app on their BlackBerry or their smartphone, have a bully pick it up and say, you've got the rat app. So we made it an online reporting tool where people can access it online. That's the first thing. The second thing is it is entirely possible that we could end up with many, many more reports than we're prepared for. The system is set up so that the safe schools coordinator will receive the anonymous report and then will provide that report to administration at the local school in context and again anonymously. If there isn't a follow-up on the report or if it hasn't been dealt with quickly, they will automatically receive a prompt at the safe school coordinator's office. What will happen ultimately is schools that are getting a lot of reports or schools where there isn't a prompt response are going to get follow-up action very quickly from that. So we'll be able to support the schools that really need the support that aren't able or don't have the tools to deal with bullying as quickly or as well as obviously they need to. So we're trying to build the system in recognizing that not every school is up to the same level of being able to deal with this and we may end up with more reports than we expect and we may end up needing to evolve and change the system because it's really important that kids when they report know that there is going to be a response. They have to know it's anonymous and therefore it's safe and second they have to have confidence that there is going to be a response otherwise they won't bother reporting. Those are essential at the beginning in this. So thanks for asking that. I apologize. Did you want to? I just have a quick comment in regards to the safe school coordinators. So I have a sister who's in high school right now and you know with her experience it's always that teachers can only do so much. They're responsible for teaching their classes, extracurricular activities and all the other things that go into being a teacher and in terms of being a safe school coordinator how can one, I guess what I'm trying to say is is there an option for other people to be trained as safe school coordinators that maybe aren't teachers within the school? Like other youth that maybe have graduated or even are in older grades? There are lots of ways that other people can support what schools are doing and I mean there are good examples of schools that are doing a fantastic job at that. Some of the students from some of those schools are here today but the thing about the safe schools coordinator is that they have undergone very specific training and it has to be anonymous or at least there has to be a guarantee of anonymity if a young person wants that. So I think we do need to be cautious about who we include in that circle of trust and the safe schools coordinator also has to be able to provide the information to the administration in the appropriate context because they may be speaking with the principal, vice principal, school counselor, teacher who doesn't necessarily have all of the background and context about bullying that they need. Those are really essential pieces of it. So yes, it's important we can include more people and I think we should. The bigger we build that foundation the better but I do think that we need to make sure that the safe school coordinators are really the people that have the core training. So go ahead. Okay I've got a lot of people. I'm going to take the lady, the woman in the first row and the woman two behind with the grey jacket and then we're going to go there and yes, dark hair earrings, I apologize. So first, the woman in the front. Yeah, Anita Roberts. Oh, hi Anita. Hi, how are you? Fine, thank you. I am the founder of SAFETEEN. It's a BC based violence prevention program. It's been in the schools for more than two decades. Barbara, you talked briefly in your session about the importance of skills. I love the vision of your race. I love the idea that kids are going to have a safe place to report and I am grateful, deeply grateful for what you've created all of you. And in the meantime, because we're not going to erase this very quickly, it's going to take some time, what are the kids going to do to navigate those moments all day long every single day? So can you speak to the importance of skills Barbara? You spoke so eloquently in the breakout session even to the point you were saying here are some of the things kids can say. And that's what we do in SAFETEEN and I just think it's a huge missing piece. Thank you, Anita. It is critical that we do certain things when a kid's been targeted. One, we say to them, I hear you, I'm here for you. I believe you. You're not in this alone. Kids are isolated. Bullies tend to do that. That's what they want to do, to isolate the targeted kid and they want them not to be believed. Again, when it's a high status social bully doing it, we are less likely to believe the kid who's been targeted. So we have to say, I hear you, I'm here for you. The next thing we have to say, it's not your fault. It's their problem, not yours. The third, and it's critical, is there are things you can do. And that's where we have to empower kids who've been targeted so they don't succumb to the bullying. And since verbal bullying is the most common form, then we have to give them some good lines. And I would caution you here. As I mentioned in my small group, there are programs out there that don't serve our kids well. For instance, there's one program that says, tell the bully, please stop that hurt. So that'll work. There's another one where you're supposed to thank the bully for making you a stronger person. I object to that tremendously. There's another one that says, ignore or avoid the bully. The bullies will find you and it's hard to ignore. It's like, don't think of the elephant, you think of the elephant. And so we have to give kids good lines. Since verbal bullying is the most common, we start with that, with tools. And one of the lines, in case you're wondering, for those of you who were in my session, I apologize for the redundancy here, to say, that was mean, that was cruel. Notice not, you're bullying me. That was mean, that was cruel, that was bigoted, that was racist, that was sexist. You identify the behavior and then say, I don't need this, I'm out of here, teaching kids to take care of themselves. Another good line, especially for you older teens and for adults in this room who may be targeted, that comment was beneath both of us. Which says, I'm not getting in the mud with you and inviting you to be bigger. Also giving them self-talk, if they're afraid to say something. Many of you confronted, didn't know what to say. Or your words, even though you were eloquent, your words didn't comment that point when you're being targeted. Is to say to yourself, as you're walking away, self-talk, I'm a decent caring human being. She's sure getting her needs met in a lousy way. Putting again, the problem backward belongs on the person doing the targeting. And I also recommend that we give targeted kids the opportunity, as James Natchway, the wonderful Canadian said, do good because good is good to do. Giving targeted kids the opportunity to get out of themselves and to do good for other human beings, because it's one of the best ways to heal the harm and the hurt. Not put them on an anti-bullying committee, because that sometimes just reaffirms that hurt. But to say to them, you know, what are you doing? Are you a soup kitchen habitat for humanity? Giving them those kinds of tools. It's so important that we don't allow anyone in our school to succumb to the bullying. We may not be able to erase it totally right at the beginning, but not to succumb to the mean and cruel. That's when we run the risk of self-harm and harming others. I'd like to add one more piece to that. And that is, you know, we can't give the kids all the right lines, but we can give them suggestions and have them brainstorm what, you know... Absolutely. I think what really I feel so passionately about this, what we need to do is we need to cultivate the core strength of our kids so that they can resource the inner-wise woman, as we call it in our program, or the solid guy in the boys' program so that they can come up with their own wise things to say because they have that wisdom. And we can introduce that part of them. We can help them unveil that part of themselves, and they can resource that wisdom and they can speak up for what they believe in without violence. And I think of that as just so, so hugely important. I've given my life to it. Thank you. Thank you, Anita. In in the back. Yes. I just had a question about the prevention. And first off, thank you so much with your comments about how creating schools where compassion is the norm. I think for parents, it is what our goal is for our kids. I wanted to ask a question about the take you out of bullying and the resource guide. I think it's a huge opportunity. And I was wondering if there were any plans to include parent and student leaders in that process because I think that's taking something that's coming from top down and really making it a groundswell. And that would be the reinforcement. And you can reinforce something at home and within the community. That's when you're going to get the uptake from our kids. Teresa. Yeah, thank you. And again, this goes back to Anita to your point. I think the take you out of bullying because it is a role play resource, which does actually capture exactly how actually even feel better about the work that's been done sitting in this room today going, oh, good. If we did get that right. But the reality is, is it is reinforcing that language and the role playing, giving those kids the inner voice and the way we want them to respond to the behavior. But as the training, the race strategy training has been delivered in all of the school communities, the school teams themselves are strongly encouraged to go back to their schools. We're doing the education in relationship to the four types of bullying through the take you out of bullying resource and strongly encouraged to ensure that they follow through with that parent piece. Of course, we're not, can't make it a thou shall, but it's strongly encouraged and it's based on research where we've seen it work. We've seen parents be more likely to come in and see their students, their children perform as opposed to come in and listen to a school administrator in SLO talk about bullying or cyber bullying. So we do know that we'll have that groundswell, if you will, as long as we all, you know, all of our school communities that are engaged in the array strategy participate and see that follow through. Can I just respond? Yep. I think that I guess where I'm saying is we are seeing though in a lot of our communities that do have parent presentations on bullying, there is uptake with parents who are leaders in their community. You can get hundreds of parents out who are willing to take that on and be more than just an observer of a presentation, but really help facilitate that within the school culture. And I think if you have parent leaders who's talked to other parents, parents don't just talk to parents outside the classroom. They talk to parents at work. They talk to parents at the soccer field, in the hockey arena and changing the culture and the language that we use. I think is going to make a huge difference. Yes, go ahead, Kelly. I'll jump in on this one just because when I was putting down that my lived experience, my lived experience is actually as a parent and a founder of two organizations that connect to families and parents around mental health. And to me, this is profoundly a mental health issue. And I think that anything that is done in schools needs to be translated to our homes. The greatest things that we have found where parents are benefiting and able to be part of the solution is when we do things and we connect. There's a connectedness between home and school. And I think there's tremendous relationships that need to be built between adults in order to really bolster our kids. And someone, Steve Kerence, is in the audience here and says no wrong adult. It's not just no wrong door. There should be no wrong adult. And there should be no wrong person, eventually, that we can all be the person that somebody needs to turn to. And we're all safe school coordinators in a sense. Thank you for that. And there we are. I want to thank you for this event. And I just wanted to mention that I am First Nations and Aboriginal. And I wanted to make comment about the need to have culturally safe schools for our Aboriginal children in British Columbia, across Canada, North America, and so on. But that it's really important to have safe, culturally safe schools. And that quite often our Aboriginal people are the butt of many jokes, racial jokes, and we suffer many of the social ills as a result of colonization and legislative acts that have done great damage to our people. And I wanted to bring that forward today because I didn't hear it discussed in this main room. And it's so vital and important to our children's future that they be respected. I see here the sign about respect and a safe education. And for many of our First Nations children, that's not the case from, you know, every school either on reserve or off reserve and that there's a sense of safety that's not there for folks. And I'm thinking about some children in East Van who had a suicide pack. There was over nearly 20 students who had a suicide pack, an Aboriginal suicide pack, and how that's just totally shocking and appalling and how we need to have more respect put into the classroom and from the teachers as well. My daughter was a student at Nutka Elementary and had suffered some very racial slurs that were mentioned in the classroom from the teacher. And then a student at VanTek and there was another racial slur that was mentioned from another teacher there using the N word and how that shouldn't be permitted. Our children of color need to be respected wherever they are, wherever they walk and we need to teach that respect and be role models for one another and also not only in the home but as a teacher and as a principal, I think that's really important and about that there's a book in the high school system. I think it's a Huckleberry Finn book or some book where they use the N word and I think that book needs to be taken out of the classroom because sometimes that N word can be used inappropriately and it needs to stop and I just want to say about erasing erasism and about racism being a part of a mental illness as well that we need to address it and to stop it at home and in the school and on the street, on the bus. Everywhere I work in healthcare and that's one of the things that we're looking at now as First Nations people looking at access to healthcare and one of the things we're looking at addressing is cultural competency and how we need to start doing teaching children about respect at every age level within the school system and kindergarten all the way up through high school and post secondary so I know that now the teachers are teaching some First Nations stuff within the UBC curriculum but I think that needs to happen at each and every grade level so thank you for listening. Thank you for that Diana. Theresa I want to speak to that. Sorry I just really want to thank you for your comments and I did reference this morning that as we're talking about the erase strategy when we talk about one of the levels of training that has been rolled out it's not just about the bullying and I referenced this morning talking about diversity and the reality we do talk about it we talk about homophobia racism but also importantly systemic racism and you know I challenge folks in the rooms because we do have to check our and challenge our own personal biases systemic racism absolutely hearing from the stakeholder groups it is alive and well and I think we do have to check our own personal biases and I say that as a professional but also as a foster parent of a First Nations student of seven years we experienced it, it is alive and well and I can assure you that it is part of the overall erase strategy and it's an important part thank you for that. Go ahead in the white blouse second row. Thank you. I just wanted to comment that the online tool is wonderful and I'm just wondering what safeguards will be put in place to ensure the sustainability for the online tool in the future and also how will the provincial ministry of education be going about ensuring that each district is making all their schools aware of it? I can answer the first half of that which is we are going to continue to evolve it within the ministry so if when you talk about sustainability I think you mean making sure that it continues to work over that there's always that backup there that there's always it's not just a reporting tool that there actually is someone who's going to take action at the back end right? I was meaning more specifically like over the years to make sure no matter who's the minister of education or who's the current political party to ensure that that website will always be there well I mean I can I can speak for for me and I can tell you this I'm passionately committed to this and we are going to make this a part of everything that we do in the Ministry of Education and we're going to do everything we can to try and grow it outside of education outside of schools to the community to parents to workplaces as well I mean it's a matter of political will we've got it but we need to make sure that we're migrating that into school districts as well one pro-D day every year that's going to be devoted to bullying training so that's going to we hope always exist don't sign the order today that training will be ongoing and sustainable I hope forever until some you know hopefully no one will decide to reverse that decision we're going to integrate it into the training that students get in teacher training at university hopefully that will be a long term part of that I mean all we can do is to try and ensure that that training is something that's always happening in the long term in to the system so that it's hard to pull out that's what we're trying to do here you know and make sure that the staff are in districts and are devoted to following up those reports when they see them so I think okay second row from the back there we are, yeah that one that's right, just push your button yeah I'm Bonnie Lebede I'm the evaluator for the WITS programs and I'm delighted to respond here with the enthusiasm to like just to witness the groundswell of expertise and at all levels students, parents and all the way up really exciting I have one question that I've been wondering through this is about the reporting tool one is how do we how do we anticipate the bullies taking it over how do we anticipate false reports and also how do, what happens once you've been filtered through the system is there a suite of interventions are we thinking restorative justice are we thinking disciplinary actions like what are we going to do with this and I think it's really essential to have that in advance in a way so that kids know if they make a report these are the kind of responses that could occur the other thing I hear a little bit here is my role as a psychologist is a little disconnect between what the youth are saying about it matters on a day to day basis it's problem identity I feel embarrassed, I'm depressed and the more I don't know higher level response which is terribly necessary too to preventing illegal acts basically to reconcile those needs and how do we fund those needs and it's very complicated let me ask Teresa to speak to that because you've been going through the training yeah I can just speak to I'm going to actually shift hats here for a minute to answer your first question in regards to the reporting tool there's no doubt and I look forward to working with the ministry representatives in the rollout and implementation of the tool because if it's done the right way and not the wrong way I can just speak to an initiative that I developed six years ago almost seven years ago now with in partnership actually with the two important gentlemen sitting in front of me Sergeant Paula Shelley and Corporal Newman because it's important that this is done in partnership and we developed it in partnership and I can tell you that in the last three and a half years we've not received one false report but it takes commitment it takes a lot of ongoing conversations the strategy of what we're communicating out there so that this isn't just ratfink.com that this is based built on wanting those cries for help answered in those interventions provided so Bonnie I loved your reference to that suite of interventions because the reality that is what occurs we get good information and we're actually able to confirm first and foremost we have to ensure that it's not a criminal code of fence because it's criminal code and fence at that point in time you've got to make sure it's actually not going off to your school personnel for the integrity of the police investigation but if it is those reports that we receive in relationship to from targets we're also now getting kids that will send us direct links to suicidal ideation posted online all the things that we want but it took a while for the kids to see it work the kids needed to see a process working providing that level of support that they needed and I have to say one of the most exciting things that occurred for me last year was seeing us trend the other way last year was the first year that proceeded beyond 50% of those reports so we launched it as an anonymous reporting tool six years ago but as of last year more than half of the reports came in as individuals who were prepared to provide their identity to us or the police that is huge because one of the biggest issues facing our society and our schools right now is this code of silence and we could talk about for a long time our hypotheses as to why that is but if you talk to police it's an issue it's an issue for us in schools where we're saying folks we will respond we just need the information so in that regard I think if this is done well and if it's done the right way I think you'll see something that is very effective and you won't see the levels of false reporting that other websites in North America there's a lot of talk about false reporting if it's done the right way it doesn't need to be turned out that way Barbara a step beyond that as well and one of the things I find universally is that we put a great program in place as the three piece strong anti-bullying policy but the second one is critical procedures in place to help keep the target safe and empower them keep any bystander who's a witness resister and defender empowered and anonymous but the next step is that we hold bullies accountable and I make a distinction between mistakes mischief and mayhem all all bullying is mayhem it's never a mistake oops I didn't mean to call him that name it's never mischief it's always mayhem now there are degrees of mayhem but it's always mayhem and I believe we have to treat it as such because if we don't it doesn't matter what kind of programs we have in place for reporting if kids don't see it being handled effectively where we're rewriting the script for the bully but also holding them highly accountable for what they did and if it reaches a criminal level that it's dealt with at that level as well and I think it has to be an overarching part of an entire discipline procedure in the school for I'll give you very quick a mistake you run out of class you felt it marker lid fell off you mark up a wall that's a mistake own it fix it learn from it move on kid does tic-tac-toe on a wall that's mischief show them what they've done wrong give them ownership of the problem give them ways solve it leave their dignity intact another kid writes a kid's name in a gross term these are all markings on the wall but that's mayhem and need to be treated that way and if we don't see it that way and we don't handle it immediately that way we won't get much reporting and so it's critical that that piece be in place within the whole province that we all say as educators and I am an educator that if a kid writes a kid's name on the wall it is not like an accidental marking and it's not like tic-tac-toe and we will hold them highly accountable for the behavior and that's where restorative justice I believe fits in restitution resolution and reconciliation own it fix it learn from it and heal with the person you've harmed yeah go ahead every time I point at you you look behind you but I mean you I really wasn't sure so I'm a co-president for the bernie me district student advisory council and I was wondering with great progressive policies and programs such as this one there's a lot of hype at the beginning but I'm wondering how you will continue to reinforce the ethics and procedures of this program and also how you will get this message and these resources such as the website where you can report bullying out to students who aren't here because a lot of the students who will be aware of this program are the people who are very involved in extracurricular activities at their school and that's like a very very small proportion of students and so I'm wondering how you'll get the word out to students who aren't aren't as active in their schools and fall at the wayside usually for programs like these good question and similar questions have been posed I think today so training 15,000 educators this year a pro-D day every year embedding anti-bullying content into our education for teachers and educators across the province a safe school coordinator in every single district who will deal with this the online reporting tool so that young people can access it and we've got someone in Teresa Campbell who is eminently experienced at making this actually work sustainably over a period of time but students is your question and so one of the things that we are we're talking about is putting together a student summit now the challenge with that is how do we make sure we just don't get the student leaders who are all the good compassionate kids who are really concerned about supporting other children and I said and I've mentioned this to Barbara and Barbara said to me the thing about bullies is that they have natural leadership skills but they don't use them well so how do we get those kids in a room with all the kids that are here today and ask them to change the way they use their leadership skills that's the challenge that we have that we're trying to sort through at our own school I was thinking that we could instead of just continually grabbing the same representatives that may be here today as well grabbing people who are leaders within their own social groups before we can do that we need to teachers and adults within schools need to recognize that there are and that there are social groups and that's the most important part I think and then once we can do that I think just finding the leaders within these social groups from every grade and then bringing them together that's so important absolutely that's good advice okay so with the dark hair I actually have two questions one is with the website and the reporting what's the time frame that you're looking at so once a report goes through are we looking at a response within a week or a couple weeks like a day for a child is being bullying it's a long time I think it depends on the nature of the report Teresa and if someone sees somebody being harmed right then we are hopefully going to be able to get a police response to the school immediately right yes and again I look forward to further engagement with ministry staff I can just again speak from my experience with our tool the nature of the information that comes forth is dependent on the time response that being said the attempt is to respond immediately it always should be regardless of the nature of behavior because somebody I refer to it as that cry for help somebody has referenced it we want to be as immediate as possible and the reporting tool is basically covered basically throughout the school hours so there is that responsiveness that's built in it doesn't matter where I am or colleagues of mine in the district of Surrey I get it wherever I am it's the reality is we also get a 24 7 and occasionally there are reports that come in on the weekend and I don't say hey guess what it's after 4 o'clock and Friday I'm not working I work with committed individuals and I think everybody in this room are committed individuals but I can just assure that it will be quite timely dependent on the nature of the report okay thank you and I just had one more question because we just saw how there's pictures of children posted on Facebook and stuff so for example our children aren't allowed to have Facebook because they're ten and under but there are children who have iPhones like for example my 8 year old had pictures of him taking and posted on other people's Facebooks is there any legislation or laws or protection that's going to be established to protect children from having pictures of them at their face in the toilet being posted or is that impossible I think if you want to if you want to go quite broadly on it there is an article in the UN convention on the rights of the child actually that obligates us to protect children from these attacks against their reputation the difficulty that you're going to run into with things like Facebook is that Facebook servers are in the United States and they're subject to United States law and we have no we have no way of regulating them at all because they're outside of our country so pressure pressure pressure we can you can certainly lobby and you can certainly attempt to appeal to Mr. Zuckerberg's empathy I'm not sure if it's 14 year olds my name is Mary Zilba and last week I held a town hall meeting a lot of the panel is here today and one of the things that it's that came up is we had quite a bit of students there and one of the things that kept coming up was the fact that children don't celebrate each other's differences and one of the ideas that we had that is kind of basic that might be a great initiative is doing something called a reach week or reach out week where children have to spend a week of their time getting to know their neighbors and that means doing a school activity with someone they don't know having lunch with someone that they don't know doing a sporting activity something with other children that are not of their ethnicity their religion just celebrating each other's differences realizing that perhaps those kids actually are really great kids and have a right to be sharing friendships beyond your group so that is one of the ideas that had come up and it's very basic but maybe something that it's kind of preventative rather than we're dealing with the issues here but maybe if kids started getting to know each other in different social circles and celebrating each other's differences it maybe wouldn't have as much bullying because two of the kids actually spoke at our event that one was a bully and he stood up and spoke and tomorrow he will be on breakfast television speaking about how he bullied it happened to be my son actually he was bullying my son but they will both be on breakfast television talking about it and one of the things he said is that he wanted to be in a different group my son wanted to be a friend with him and he didn't want to be friends with him because he wasn't cool and he had so he bullied him so now he likes him but it took a long time for him to get to that point so it's just a comment to say that maybe we also have to implement some ways of maybe educators having children get to know each other a week in the beginning of a school year so that maybe there isn't so much discrimination thank you for that that one Mary I'm going to keep moving here I've got Levi is it Levi Fox okay thank you I'm Levi Fox and I'm obviously a student at Vic High so from the island and I have a few concerns it was also directed at the website I don't know how many people here would know about them but they're what our generation calls trolls so they could I don't know how many of you know them but they're generally very negative and it's fun to say make false accusations on the website and then that could get somebody in a lot of trouble because they haven't done anything but there are these accusations and also I noticed that in one of the presentations you said bullying is intentionally causing pain for the pleasure of another individual and I don't think that's entirely true I think that a lot of bullies are completely unaware that they are bullies and they they just they don't feel like they're bullying people and it's a very unconscious process thank you for that Levi Barber can I ask you to speak to that and Jay yeah Trevor over there actually was speaking to a bunch of points that I want to do because hey I think if we're going to need to implement that reporting tool that we're also going to need to find a way to discipline the people who abuse the power of that reporting tool to like you know falsify claims because I know from experience that there are people who you know get off on doing that in fact like I mean I've seen some of my brothers peers and stuff you know partake in that kind of thing like when it's implemented I think it's crucial that it be that um the people know that like you know abusing its power and everything will should result in like serious consequence like maybe even like you know some kind of federal consequence or something like that I'm not sure exactly but that's one thing I want to speak on and the other thing I want to speak on is about yeah like stuff like unconscious bullying and because like to me bullying and social crimes are really all a matter of perception because I know because I remember I look at what I was like in grade like seven and what I would and what I'm like now and in grade seven I didn't really understand like you know fit like things like you know occasional like teasing and stuff as social norms so sometimes I would you know interpret like things that weren't intended to be harmful as hurtful things that you know led me to think like self deprecating way about myself so really one of the things that I think is crucial for parents and students to do is to encourage kids to become like to become conscious of how they affect the world around them see like even like when they make a little like you know teasing comment thinking about like how it affects that person look for like little subliminal like you know little subliminal hints like you know what like what the person's face looks like after think about how could that be harmful is that just a teasing thing they seem doesn't seem to be good natured or am I doing a good thing for somebody like that so yeah thank you for that Barbara could you speak to the definition of bullying yes and I work on that very hard all over the world because if we don't understand what it is how are we going to deal with that and and Jay you you expressed that so well if we are not aware you say that it's unconscious but if we are swimming in a culture of mean it becomes the norm and if we don't discern the difference between teasing and taunting Jay and I can tease one another and it's it's two-sided he teases me I tease him it's mutual taunting I attack him and all my buddies join in there is no slippery slope I'm getting pleasure and if I'm swimming in that culture I mean I see nothing wrong with getting pleasure from his pain it's raising that awareness that I make a difference I can harm him so when people say to me I didn't mean it now to say let's see what would be oh to do someone down and he Jews in here not a good thing to say but it's not bullying it's ignorance somebody needs to pull me aside and say let's talk about stereotypes here to pull someone I I did that off the rest boy he went off the rest for somebody to pull me aside and say those comments have an intolerance and bigotry and prejudice behind it that's not bullying but I need to stop it to gyps someone referring to gypsies that's ignorance for many of us but if I use a bigoted comment thinly disguised as a joke that's taunting and it is bullying taunting is bullying teasing have you ever made a mistake though I say have you ever at the wrong time wrong place said something to a good friend but if I would say something to Jay meaning it light-hearted and his face went blank or sad what would I do if I was his friend would stop or sometimes I put my foot in further and he'd have to recover me and say you know what I understand what would a bully do if his face went blank or he had a tear in his eye keep it up so that's very easy to discern the difference between teasing and taunting by how I respond when he is hurt and so I think it's teaching kids the difference but if you're right in a culture of mean where it's the norm to target other kids and get pleasure from it you begin to see that I didn't mean it and yet it's mean and it has to be stopped I've got in the front and then my name is Karen and I was a youth facilitator with the Beyond the Heart program with the Red Cross as well as a lot of other youth in this room what my understanding is that the Erase Bullying Strategy equips adults with the education about intervention so how to step in on a bullying situation, how to create healthy schools what my question is is how does the Erase Bullying Strategy equip youth with the education or the training to then train other students so with the Beyond the Heart program a lot of youth in this room as well as myself have worked with other youth and given them the knowledge on how to intervene how does the Erase Bullying Strategy do that there is on the website a big section for youth as well so it's not just intended to equip adults, it's also intended to equip youth Teresa I don't know if you want to speak to some of the other training that's going on just again coming back to the take you out of bullying strategy that is really training for those individuals including SLOs police officers to come back and make sure that they're delivering that to the youth so it's imperative that that is part of the process and that being said the Erase Strategy we don't respect Ed program I'm a huge supporter of so the Erase Strategy we are still embracing all of those wonderful programs that work in the province of British Columbia so I definitely didn't come in and develop a new training I actually point people in the direction of those programs that might work wonderfully well for their communities and respect Ed it being one of those and safety being another one so generally those references we were not in the wheel and on twitter we got a number of people that asked a question similar to this how much of the summits feedback will be added to the website for improvement are you listening to the feedback the answer is that is the purpose of the summit so for example Mary Zilba's comment is something that we can you know we'll think about we'll take with us and we will add that in to our strategy that's what this is about how do we improve what we're trying to what we're already doing here so thank you for that question in the back corner my name is David Butler I'm a teacher here in Vancouver but I'm representing the BC teachers Federation today in their committee for action on social justice I sit with the LGBTQ committee I thought it was somewhat appropriate today in the Metro there's a story of a gay man that was verbally threatened twice at the YMCA over the weekend once on Saturday the same perpetrator returned on Sunday and they saw each other in the locker room and the assault continued and the person the assault the salient didn't lose his membership so I was thinking about the culture of safety because I had a conversation with Diana over lunch about cultures of safety schools being safe places for people for all people just a couple of weeks ago I went to the interior to do a workshop on anti homophobia education to a bunch of high school teachers and I was quite surprised when a principal asked me we were talking about bringing in literature in high schools maybe there's a famous book about two young women who fall in love in New York City they're both 17 it's you know renowned story and it could be read in a grade 12 literature class the principal said what if a parent comes in and is really upset that I have such material in the class like what do I say or what do I do and I'm looking at the principal thinking if it was a novel about an interracial couple and someone was coming in because they were freaking out that there was an interracial love story you wouldn't even give that person the time of day like you wouldn't even consider that position because it's not part of the school's mission statement of being an inclusive place why are we honoring homophobia like why why so the message I got from the teacher is the teachers don't even know that they really need to be clear about the values of the school system because they're worried they're really afraid and if teachers are afraid to deal with homophobia we're not sending a very good message to the students when they're also asked to do the same thing thank you for that David I am I'm going to because you there you are okay now you've had your head up for a long time we're going to have to make this the very last comment question piece of feedback thank you so much my question was that living in a multi-culture society I have no doubts that this is going to be a successful program because you're passionate behind it and the room full of people that want to see the change so that's awesome but is there any plans or can we expect this to be also available in other languages that are you know here that is one and the second one is we still have a couple generations that are still excited I know parents that are excited themselves oh I have a facebook account so they're still struggling with the online so not everybody's tech savvy so is there going to be pamphlets and written data available that we can put at community centers or even at libraries and stuff last but not the least what do you think about having some sort of mandatory self development classes within the school system those were my two points mandatory self development classes what do you mean by that specifically are you talking about I'm actually going to pass it to Navi okay so this is actually a question that I also had is because a lot of you spoke on this Barb you said that we need to raise children with compassion because that's values that we often forget through life and the workshops that I teach we base them around teaching youth that belongingness is the first step and I feel that's where hatred and ignorance and bullying comes from it's a lack of belonging or a sense of belonging with your peers and what I wanted to know is similar workshops to what we teach which are based around something that Mary said reach out and spending time with others that are different from you based in meditation, yoga spirituality, community outreach is there a way for us to implement that in our school system here Barbara can I ask you to speak to that you've looked all over the world and seen what works mandatory people get their ire up but I really believe where we've seen it we had an issue with yoga in Colorado by some groups that really bucked it even though it was very effective so they came around in the back door and taught animal zoo moves they had to call it that until it got embedded and once it was embedded then the language was acceptable and mandatory to have programs begin like yours does and being willing to spread it out get the word out there the government cannot do it all but they can certainly help channel it and help support it but it's got to be activists like people in this room that say this works let's show how it works here and then just as you're doing the thing you're doing it in small places first working out the kinks and we now have a very active yoga program in many of our schools but I gotta tell you to make it mandatory at first it would not have worked but then to bring it in and get it to be a very successful and show how safe schools creating more calm peaceful environments and accepting environments works and reduces not only bullying but reduces all kinds of self harm and violence in the schools then you can spread that I know safe teens you were started very small and it is now spread and I believe that's going to have to be part of what goes on and that's the energy of this group the energy of each one of you in here to be able to make it work but you know you have a minister and a premier here who says that's what brought me here was the excitement that the government wants to make a difference and is willing to jump in but can't do it alone Barbara thanks very much and Merlin just a final comment on education for techno intimidated adults solos we go out and do that in the schools there's online curriculum and resources it really is triage education we have a gap in time now we need everybody up it's going to unfold more naturally when we get 5 or 10 years down the road it will be much more easier to integrate and understand the dynamics but at this point we do need to get roll out education and really shake up and get parents involved as much as possible