As I speak about long term impact of bullying at conferences for school social workers, school psychologists, school counselors, etc, I consistently hear from the attendees that most schools are still not doing enough in their bullying prevention programs. Many school board and administration officials are still not convinced about the priority. Clearly, we have a lot more work to do yet.
On many occasions I receive calls and emails from school social workers, school psychologists, and school counselors trying to get me to come to their schools to speak to the students, teachers, other school staff and to parents. But in most cases it doesn’t work out because the person asking for it is not able to convince their school principal to approve the funding needed to make this happen. I would estimate that about one in ten is eventually able to get enough funding approved to be able to make this work.
I do understand that school administration officials (such as school board officials, school principals, etc) have to deal with a lot of funding requests coming in from various directions. But I do believe that these officials do not truly understand the long term impacts of bullying that can derail an individual over the rest of his/her life. These officials are generally focused on making things better for the children, but their priority on bullying prevention will not change until and unless they feel convinced about the devastating long term impact bullying can have on an individual.