Tackling Bullying in Schools and Beyond:
Working to Make a Real Difference

Location:  Springfield, MA - Holyoke Inn and Conference Center, Springfield - Holyoke

Children and adolescents face many challenges as they try to develop and make sense of their world. School is supposed to be a safe and supportive environment for students to learn and to grow, yet for many students school is an uncomfortable or even dangerous environment due to the presence of bullies and exposure to bullying. Clinicians and educators in schools need to be prepared to initiate anti-bullying prevention efforts as well as be familiar with effective intervention strategies to help those impacted by bullying.

In this workshop, we will evaluate how we can best fight bullying in our schools and communities, what lessons and challenges have been learned from implementation of new anti-bullying legislation, and talk about techniques to address cyberbullying, which exploits newer technologies to produce an old negative behavior. We will examine a range of issues, prevention and intervention options and techniques including team initiatives, culture of support, confronting myths about bullying, and, on the technological side, no bystanding Internet campaigns, social networking slander attacks, and community building efforts to address "cyberbullying," Finally, we will explore challenges that clinicians and educators face on a day-to-day basis that can either foster or combat bullying. Participants will be able to:

• Identify key causes that lead to bullying and explore prevention efforts to create a school environment much less conducive to bullying
• Adopt behavioral intervention initiatives to promptly address acts of bullying in schools that takes individual, group, school-culture and systemic factors into account
• Identify similarities and differences between cyberbullying and bullying, and develop effective strategies to combat cyberbullying
• Understand the new anti-bullying legislation in Massachusetts and explore its practical application to students' interactions in their schools, their community, and in cyberspace

This workshop is designed for practitioners and educators who are working to address bullying issues in their schools. The workshop format will include lecture, case examples, multi-media presentation, legislative review and critique, and discussion.

Instructor:

Daniel Jacobs, Ed.M., Psy.D., M.B.A., is a licensed psychologist in private practice at Andover Mental Health Associates. He was formerly the Director of the Adolescent Partial Hospital Program at Salem Hospital. Dr. Jacobs trains nationally and internationally with mental health agencies, substance abuse providers, residential programs and schools with a focus on helping improve communication, effectiveness, and ways to imitate lasting behavioral change in difficult circumstances. Dr. Jacobs believes hope is always an option and to achieve success we have to be willing to take risks.