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Response - Newcastle Action Against Bullying

What is RESPONSE?

RESPONSE is a multi disciplinary team of four professionals who draw experience from Health, Education and the Police. RESPONSE is located in integrated services within Children's Services.

Our vision for Newcastle's Anti Bullying Service is to respond to bullying in Newcastle schools and communities, working together to create a safer environment.

RESPONSE currently receives funding from the Newcastle Area Based Grant which is funded until March 2011.

Who are we working with?

RESPONSE can offer training, support and guidance to the following groups in the City of Newcastle

  • All primary, secondary and special schools
  • All multi disciplinary agencies who deliver services in schools and the community to young people and their families.
  • All young people's groups and supporting adults within those groups.

  • Young People and families in partnership with school staff as directed by the schools Anti Bullying Policy

Current Work

RESONSE has a themed approach to anti bullying work and is developing a wide range of issues incorporating young people’s safety and wider safeguarding. The work of RESPONSE is organised into the following themes:

  • Digital lives, cyber safety and bullying

Training is available to children, young people, parents/carers and staff on a bespoke basis. The team have a unique approach to this work and offer an in-house series of programmes under a 'keeping it real' title RESPONSE has been involved in extensive research in this area, and this is an ongoing development.  Response has forged links with a number of related partners throughout this work e.g. CEOP and young people from a number of Newcastle schools.

Free training for schools - E-safety

Please see attached flyer for more information for E Safety Training for schools

For further information about this work please contact Fraser Gill on 0191 277 4514.

  • Prejudice and Community Cohesion theme

There is a full range of activity which broadly addresses prejudice issues from sexual bullying and gender identify to race and disability. Training and awareness raising sessions are offered to schools on a bespoke basis, and can arise from emerging school community issues or from a direct result of auditing policy work.

Free training for schools - Exploring Gender Roles and Addressing Stereotypes and Disability Awareness sessions.

Please see attached flyers for primary and secondary sessions

For more information about this work please contact Lucy Robson on 0191 277 4511.

  • Specialist projects, research and complex case work

There are a number of projects in development, an example of this work includes:

Social Norms reseach project - This research has been in development for the last year, RESPONSE is involving two secondary schools in this innovative programme. The basis of the research is to explore the normative behaviours of young people and measure these against the perceptions of what peers are doing. The social norms approach has been developed to demonstrate that people of all ages generally think there are fewer positive behaviours and more risk taking or negative behaviours than is actually the case.

For more information about this work please contact Michelle Crawford 0191 277 4512

  • Anti Bullying Award and training theme

The anti bullying award scheme is designed to offer schools a robust framework to follow when developing anti bullying policy, practice and ethos for the whole school community.  Guidance for schools wishing to participate in the scheme was created; this allows schools to work through sections to highlight good practice. 

How can my school get involved?

Interested schools are required to have the following in place before applying for the anti bullying award:

  • Newcastle Healthy Schools status
  • Minimum of grade two in their last Ofsted inspection (see Anti Bullying Award scheme guidance for more information)

Please find attached a copy of the award application form, a hard copy can also be obtained on request. Once schools have completed the application form a member of the RESPONSE staff will contact the school to arrange an initial meeting.  RESPONSE can offer training, support and guidance to all secondary schools and primary schools in the City of Newcastle. Support to schools would be negotiated with staff and members of the school community.

RESPONSE can offer support with:

Staff Development

  • Assisting staff in developing creative methods for addressing the complexities of bullying themes/related issues using drama and associated mediums.
  • Offer a range of Anti Bullying programmes on a bespoke basis.Highlighting good practice and sharing this across a network of schools using local and regional networks including the Anti Bullying Alliance.

Young People

  • Development of peer support schemes in schools.
  • Offering a range of training to young people and staff.
  • Highlighting good practice and sharing this across a network of schools using regional and national networks including the Anti Bullying Alliance.
  • Development of peer support and personal development programmes in schools.
  • Direct assistance with complex cases of bullying. There is no capacity for one to one case work, however RESPONSE does offer a specialist service to schools and families where relationships between the school and family have broken down and all other avenues of support/intervention have failed.
  • Specific workshops/awareness raising programmes on specific issues.
  • Support young people through consultation exercises.

Parents

  • Deliver specific workshops on anti bullying related themes e.g. on internet safety and the use of social media.
  • Support the development of anti bullying initiatives e.g. Peer Support Programmes.Provide telephone advocacy support to parents/carers in relation to individual cases of bullying to investigate the case and provide signposting advice.

Whole School

  • Direct support and guidance with all aspects of the Anti Bullying Award process.
  • Act as a signposting link to other agencies offering training, support and intervention in schools and communities.
  • Support the development of anti bullying initiatives e.g. Peer Support Programmes.

Recent achievements

  • Secured external funding through Newcastle Area Based Grant up to March 2011 to continue the development of the Anti Bullying strategy.
  • Designed and delivered Participatory Appraisal events of behalf of several partner agencies looking to evaluate their services to young people.
  • Themed approach to Anti Bullying work enabled us to develop a variety of creative mediums and resources to address bullying through the curriculum.
  • Delivered specialist training in schools and to several agencies across Education, Health, Social Services and Social Care.
  • Currently offering a range of consultation and interventions to schools working towards the Anti Bullying Award Scheme.
  • Developed strong links with the Education Welfare Services, other education partners, CEOP etc.
  • Established a multi agency Anti Bullying steering group from a wide range of organisations across the sectors.
  • Developing a database to monitor Bullying and harassment incidents in Newcastle in partnership with Agencies against Racist Crime and Harassment (ARCH) - launch April 2007.
  • Launched the Anti Bullying accreditation scheme for schools - Pilot Sept 2006-2007 and roll out of phase 2.
  • Represent Newcastle at a regional level as a member of the National Anti Bullying Alliance.
  • Commissioned a small scale evaluation of Anti Bullying work undertaken by RESPONSE Anti Bullying team in 2005-2006.
  • Cyber Safety Conference - 2007.
  • Disability and SEN conference November 2008.
  • Peer Led Research project involving St Catherine's Primary school 2008.
  • Intergenerational Project “All Young Once” 2008.
  • Members of the team have received ambassador training from CEOP (Child Exploitation and Online Protection) and delivered this into schools
  • Community Cohesion project in collaboration with Seven Stories the Centre for Children’s Books 2009 – 2010.
  • 10 schools successfully achieved anti bullying award in 2009.
  • Disability awareness sessions delivered into primary schools in conjunction with Skills for People in 2009.
  • Cyber Safety Development work ongoing.
  • "Safer Schools" project involving Walbottle campus and Excelsior Academy in 2009.
  • RESPONSE has been recognised by national strategies as outstanding for effective practice in reducing levels of bullying in all Newcastle schools.

Quotes from schools/other agencies involved:

Heaton Manor
"The anti bullying award guidance has allowed the school to evaluate how it deals with bullying issues in school. It has also allowed us to complete a new anti bullying policy which involved all stakeholders. As a result the staff are keen to complete anti bullying training and students are keen to pass on their concerns to the staff."

Quotes from pupils involved in Disability Awarenes Sessions:

  • "I enjoyed learning people that are disabled can be treated the same as everyone else"
  • "I enjoyed that they told me lots of information about how people get bullied just because they are disabled it was interesting"
  • "I enjoyed seeing the videos that told us real experiences that some people go through because of their disability"

Quotes from staff involved in seven stories/RESPONSE community cohesion project:

  • "Inspiring - I will definitely use one of the books featured and will look forward to collecting evidence for Seven Stories".
  • "These books can give great confidence to teachers who don't have literacy and English as a specialism. For me they give me a new impetus to try new ways of working with schemes of work I've that might have got a bit stale".
  • "Yes, good explanation of the project generating lots of excitement. Always enthusiastic about offering new ways into story books".

Newsletters

RESPONSE Newsletter - October 2009 (pdf, 103kb)
RESPONSE Newsletter - May 2008 (pdf, 729kb)

Contact

If you wish to discuss your schools eligibility to take part or the future of Anti Bullying support please do not hesitate to contact

Michelle Crawford
Anti Bullying Coordinator
Phone: 0191 277 4512
Email: response@newcastle.gov.uk

Disclosures or requests for helf will be dealt with in line with the Newcastle City Council Child Safeguarding Policy. Visit the Newcastle Safeguarding Children's Board.

The RESPONSE team will not in any way be liable for any incident occurring or any injury caused to any person before, or after, a response to an email has been issued by the RESPONSE team.