This week is anti-bullying week and at ACCA, we understand the considerable impact for children, when they find themselves the target of bullies. Safeguarding children can be a complex undertaking but when the abuse becomes part of an evolving digital age, where children experience online bullying when they play their games or connect with friends, abuse becomes a hidden agenda, that is all the more difficult to spot, even for parents.
What is online bullying?
Online bullying (or cyberbullying) is defined as ‘bullying that takes place over digital devices like cell phones, computers, and tablets. Cyberbullying can occur through SMS, Text, and apps, or online in social media, forums, or gaming where people can view, participate in, or share content. Cyberbullying includes sending, posting, or sharing negative, harmful, false, or mean content about someone else. It can include sharing personal or private information about someone else causing embarrassment or humiliation. Some cyberbullying crosses the line into unlawful or criminal behaviour’.
How the Government is responding
The Online Safety Bill 2022 delivers the government’s manifesto commitment to make the UK the safest place in the world to be online while defending free expression. For children, these new laws mean that companies must assess risks and take action to tackle illegal and harmful activity that threatens the safety of children. In addition, platforms likely to be accessed by children will need to ensure that there are strong protections from activity, which is harmful to children, to include harms such as bullying. Whilst this goes some way to tackling the problem, we question whether it is enough.
The Office for National Statistics highlights that in the year ending March 2020, almost one in five children experienced online bullying. This equates to approximately 764,000 children.
The impact of online bullying
This type of bullying goes beyond schoolyard thugs and takes the abuse to a 24/7 basis, into a child’s home, where they should feel safe and into all aspects of their social life. As with many types of abuse, it often remains hidden until it reaches a point of crisis. ACCA does not frequently come across this type of abuse as the main feature of our involvement with families however, it is the vulnerable children that we work with that may be the most at risk of being targeted by bullies. I worked with a family, who came to our attention when their 14-year-old son, J, tried to take his life. J refused to disclose the reasons for his behaviours until his parents’ found messages on his phone and his computer, where he had endured months of threats and taunts to kill himself. The bullies had researched ways of killing yourself without pain and sent J links when he tried to tell them how they were making him feel. Fortunately, J survived, unlike some who we have seen all too often in the media, and was supported in his recovery by his parents, who have attended courses to help them and J to understand how to better protect him from future harm.
How ACCA will respond to online bullying
At ACCA, we aspire to assist parents to recognise the signs of online bullying and include guidance about the signs to look out for in our Induction Programme for Parenting Practitioners who work closely with parents within the course of our 24/7 In the Home Programme. It is a growing and worrying phenomenon. Children need the tools to develop emotional resilience, build their self esteem and confidence and their parents, the ability to recognise what to look for and how to effectively safeguard their children. This will be just one focus of our developing early intervention and family support services, which aim to support the most vulnerable children and their families to manage the ever-evolving challenges of parenting.
