Bullying; “unwanted, aggressive behavior among school aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance (@stopbullying.gov.)” Hi, i’m Nya an intern at Berkshire HorseWorks through Miss Hall’s Horizons program and I will be blogging about relevant topics over the next few months. It takes an active community to stop bullying. When I was younger, my best friend was bullied, I tried so hard to help her. However, I found it hard to stand up to them by myself and ended up getting bullied too. We were all alone. The schools tried to address it through programming and discussions which did help us feel at least they were aware. But it wasn’t resonating with enough people and the call to action faded. It’s one thing to have anti-bullying prevention programs in schools, which is known to decrease bullying by 25% (National Bullying Prevention Center) @pacer.org. But it is another thing to maximize those learnings so that all can feel the impact. Not all kids or parents are visual learners so they don’t fully grasp the magnitude of the situation. Imagine how effective it would be to partner school initiatives with a program which can reinforce the learnings of the curriculum with experiential, real time interactions. At BHW, we have found the Equine Assisted bully prevention pilot programs to be highly effective, so we will now expand them into all the schools in our district. We may call on you to help us get this going as we all know it takes a whole community that cares to do this right. @berkshirehorseworks.com. Keep you posted! #strong community #horses stop bullying #show you care #mental health #students
