Standing Up To Bullies—Across Canada!
Our Conversation With Dr. Debra Pepler

Kid-Safe Productions recently spoke to Dr. Debra Pepler of the Canadian Initiative for the Prevention of Bullying(CIPB) to hear her perspective on the positive changes in Canadian schools.

Professor Pepler works at York University in the LaMarsh Centre for Research on Violence and Conflict Resolution. She’s working with other leading researchers in child development from The Hospital for Sick Children, Queen’s University, The University of British Columbia and Laval University. In a groundbreaking three-year project, the team will be developing a national strategy to reduce problems of bullying and victimization throughout Canada.

According to Dr. Pepler and her colleagues, “bullying is a community problem evident across the lifespan and is not simply a problem in schools”. The CIPB is working with national organizations, community groups, governments and individuals to create safe, healthy environments for all Canadian children and youth.

“Ten years ago, this issue wasn’t even on the radar screen,” Dr. Pepler noted in our conversation. “Now we’re understanding that bullying dynamics take place in adult relationships as well, in the form of abuse of power.”

The Four Pillars

The CIPB is founded on what it calls the “Four Pillars”: Education, Assessment, Intervention and Policy. The Education Pillar develops awareness to change attitudes in the community. The Assessment Pillar provides universal assessment tools to evaluate the extent of victimization. The Intervention and Evaluation Pillar provides programs and tools to reduce problems of bullying. Finally, the Policy Pillar works in collaboration with organizations and governments to address these concerns for all citizens.

Dr. Pepler notes that although the CIPB is a national initiative in this country, it is likely to benefit many people around the world. Canada, she says, is emerging as a leader in the anti-bullying field. Because of our country’s diverse population, we have an openness and respect for differences that encourages sensitivity to these issues.

In describing the four Pillars of the project, Dr. Pepler affirmed many of the messages that are key parts of Kid-Safe Productions’ shows.

In the Intervention Pillar, Dr. Pepler and her colleagues describe effective approaches that can help stop bullying in its tracks. According to the team’s research, when peers have the courage and conviction to intervene on behalf of the victim, bullies stop their behaviour within 10 seconds, 70% of the time.

Adult Leadership Needed

“Peer influence is enormously important to children,” Pepler notes. “When you remove the ‘theatre of the bully’, that is, an audience for their behaviour, the bully no longer has social status and their behaviour loses its potency.”

However, in addition to the importance of the peer group, adult leadership is a key part of the solution.

“It’s not okay to let the earliest stage of this go,” Dr. Pepler says. “We have to give this behaviour less opportunity to develop by saying ‘That’s disrespectful. We don’t have those kinds of messages at our school,’ and so on.”

Reason to Feel Hopeful

At the end of our interview, we asked Dr. Pepler if there’s reason to feel hopeful, even though serious bullying incidents still occur in Canadian schools. In response, she was warm and optimistic and she affirmed the importance of organizations such as Kid-Safe Productions who present positive, solution-focused messages.

“It’s important to always remember,” she said, “that the vast majority of children are just wonderful, and the children at risk are small in number. Children can become aligned with us very quickly to become peer supporters.”

Kid-Safe Productions would like to thank Dr. Debra Pepler for sharing her perspective with us. We’re proud to support the Canadian Initiative for the Prevention of Bullying and will keep you, our readers, up-to-date on its progress. – KS.