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DEH CHO
Schools in the Dehcho are set to implement a new program to help reduce bullying and peer victimization in the area.

Schools in the Dehcho are set to implement the WITS program in order to help reduce bullying. - Miranda Scotland/NNSL photo

The WITS Primary Program, which stands for walk away, ignore, talk it out, seek help, provides teachers with materials and information they can use during classroom lessons.

"It's a program that not only assists the person who is being bullied but it also has a component that deals with being a bystander and there are some strategies if you are the bully,” said Terry Jaffray, superintendent of the Deh Cho Divisional Education Council. "It's good because it looks at all aspects of bullying."

Peer victimization

The issue of peer victimization has received a lot of attention in Canada lately, namely due to the death of British Columbia teen Amanda Todd who killed herself after being continually cyber-bullied. Last month, the topic made its way into the GNWT legislative assembly when MLA Daryl Dolynny asked what the government was doing to prevent tragedies such as what happened to Todd.

Jackson Lafferty, minister of Education, Culture and Employment, said his department has created a safe schools plan, which should be implemented in 2013.

In the Deh Cho, Jaffray said there is currently no formal policy about bullying or on having a bullying policy in place.

Nonetheless, the schools have taken some action. In the past, they implemented the effective behaviour supports system, which was designed to encourage positive behaviour. Some of the schools also used a program developed by Alberta Safe and Caring Schools. The next step is the WITS program and it will be used at Deh Gah School, Bompas School, Echo Dene School, Charles Yohin School, Charles Tetcho School and Chief Julian Yendo School.

Kakisa and Jean Marie River have not signed up, Jaffray said.

"Sometimes kids are mean to each other but because there is such a small school population they just decided that they didn't really need to do a formal program like that," she said.

In the past, there have been issues of peer victimization in the region. Last year, there were two incidents where students used Facebook to make hurtful comments about other people, Jaffray said, adding there have also been problems with face-to-face bullying.

"(Incidents) range from name calling to physical intimidation where people are bothering kids on the playground, maybe pushing them or taking equipment away from them while they're using it,” she said. “I would say probably in every school there is some bullying going on."

University of Lethbridge professor Robin Bright did a study from 2006 to 2008 on online communication and social development among rural adolescents in Alberta. Her research found that rural youth are being bullied to the same extent as youth living in urban areas.

She also found that most of the bullying was carried out by people the child knew and it didn’t occur exclusively online or offline.

Adults should ask questions

"If something starts online it can then lead to face-to-face bullying and vice versa. That's quite an interesting piece of data because it means that it's really hard to get away from bullying once it starts," Bright said, adding there are some adults who may think the answer is just to turn off the computer but that just doesn’t work.

"It just shows a disconnect between what adults think will solve the problem and what teens real lives are like. You can't turn off the computer and cyber-bullying is going to go away. It will continue whether that child knows about it or not."

Michelle Goldstein, a counsellor with Kids Help Phone, said one of the worst things parents, teachers, friends or family members can do is to ignore the problem.

"When a kid says I'm being bullied one of the first things I ask is how are they? So in other words acknowledging it and validating it is very important. It's helping the kid feel they can do something," Goldstein said.

Adults should ask questions to find out exactly what’s been happening and how the child has been dealing with the situation, she added. Also, it’s important to try and empower the youth because often children feel they’re the reason they’re being bullied. They think something is wrong with them, when that simply isn’t true, Goldstein said.

"Who ever is bullying, chances are they're being bullied somewhere, there is some sort of violence going on, there is some sort of reason they're doing this. There could be a change in their life, they're not feeling safe, that's why they're bullying," she said.

Through Bright’s research, it became apparent that parents need to be far more involved in their child’s online lives. They should know who their child is communicating with and set out guidelines about what’s appropriate, she said.

"One of the things that teens often really believe is what's online stays online. They don't really see that there are any real world consequences for what they do online,” she said, adding some youth see what they do online as a game. “To me, that's really a huge misconception that probably results in the kinds of more negative behaviours we hear about in the news and so on.”

Jaffray said the school counsellors in the region are looking into doing presentations for parents about social media and the Internet. According to the NWT Bureau of Statistics, 40.7 percent of households in the Deh Cho had Internet access in 2009.

Also, Jaffray advised community members to be vigilant about bullying and taking youth’s complaints seriously.

"Sometimes people tend to not respond as quickly as we should. Adults may not respond to children who are being bullied, thinking 'Oh, it's not that bad' or a lot of people think 'Oh, I was bullied as a kid it's just something we outgrow.' But I think more and more we're finding out that the effects of bullying can be long lasting and can be really detrimental to how some kids respond in certain situations."

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