Virginia schools implement anti-bullying program

In response to studies that show people who bully are susceptible to anti-social behavior, Virginia Commonwealth University has started a new program: Project Towards a Bully-Free Virginia.

Training for the program started the first week of August when VCU’s Department of Education teamed up with program coordinator Catherine Moffett and 27 other professionals to create a certification program focused on dealing with bullying.

Most of Virginia’s K-12 schools this September will implement the program and provide a posting of school anti-bullying rules in the corridors and in their handbooks.

“Our focus is to empower school divisions to implement research-based bully prevention,” Moffett said.

The program is based on what professionals call the “Olwes Model,” founded in Norway in the 1960s and 1970s. From there it spread across Europe and Canada, finally arriving in the United States in 1995 when the U.S. Department of Justice led the project in South Carolina schools.

Moffett said research showed that “bullying was significantly reduced” when the program was implemented.

“I didn’t realize bullying was such a problem,” Megan Carter, a sophomore mass communications major at VCU, said.

Like Carter, many are numb to bullying.

“In our culture, bullying is glorified,” Moffett said. “It’s a joke.”

After the program’s success in South Carolina, Clemson University headed it on a national level. The Olwes program focuses on finding out everything about bullying within schools from what type of bullying is going on to where it’s happening and its frequency.

Its objective is to show children other ways to gain power. According to Moffett and the Olwes program, a bully is someone who uses verbal, cyber, physical, intellectual, or other harmful means to gain power.

“I think it’s a good idea,” Caleb Miller, a sophomore mass communications major, said of the program. “I think everyone has a right to feel comfortable wherever they are, under any circumstances.”