Anti-bullying guidance for adults working with children and young people

Resources and support

Support for children and young people

respectme, Scotland’s Anti-Bullying Service, has information available for children and young people to help them understand what bullying is, and what their options are if they are being bullied.

Childline offers direct emotional and practical support for children and young people about bullying at school or any other issues. Childline can also be contacted free on 0800 11 11.

Young Scot provide a range of information to build young people’s understanding of what they can do if they are being bullied, including support for online bullying.

Reach provides information and advice to children and young people who have, or might have, an additional support need on their rights.

Support for parents

respectme, Scotland’s Anti-Bullying Service, has a range of information resources and training opportunities to increase parent awareness of bullying behaviour and to consider the different ways they can respond if their child is being bullied, or is involved in the bullying of others. These resources also offer guidance on how schools and parents can work together to create inclusive environments and provide effective support for children and young people.

ParentLine Scotland can help parents or family members think about the best way to deal with a situation where their child is being bullied or is displaying bullying behaviour. Parentline Scotland can also be contacted free and in confidence on 0800 028 2233.

Parentclub provides information to support parents where their child is being bullied at school.

Connect works with with parents, parent groups and educators, providing information, advice and training.

National Parent Forum of Scotland is a volunteer-led organisation that works to ensure that parents play a full and equal role in education.

Enquire provides advice for parents of children who have, or might have, an additional support need.

Coordinated by the Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights (CRER), Advocacy for Race Equality in Schools Scotland (AdRESS) is an advocacy and advice service launched to support parents and carers whose child has experienced racist incidents or racially motivated bullying in school.

Enquiries can be made by telephone on 0330 122 4600 or by email at support@adresscotland.org. They can also be submitted through the online contact form on the AdRESS website (www.AdRESScotland.org) where further information and resources can also be found.

The NSPCC has published advice for parents on keeping children safe online.

Support for schools/organisations and education authorities

Support and guidance is available from respectme, Scotland’s Anti-Bullying Service, which offers free training to all those with a role to play in the lives of children and young people to prevent and respond to bullying effectively, aligned to ‘Respect for All’.

respectme have developed a template anti-bullying policy which can be adapted by schools, organisations or education authorities to meet their local circumstances. The template policy can be accessed from respectme’s website.

Education authorities will have local guidance on recording and monitoring, and public schools should refer to this when developing their approach.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission has published key guidance relating to the Equality Act 2010 and the Public Sector Equality Duty:

• Equality Act 2010: guidance
• Equality and Human Rights Commission guidance on the Public Sector Equality Duty for Scottish public bodies
• Equality and Human Rights Commission Technical Guidance for Schools in Scotland

The Scottish Government has published key guidance and resources to support schools:

• Preventing and responding to gender-based violence: a whole school framework
• Resources to support schools when responding to racism and racist incidents
• Supporting transgender young people in schools: guidance for Scottish schools
• Guidance on mobile phones in Scotland’s schools

SEEMiS has produced a number of resources to support staff using the system. This includes help pages outlining the functionality of the Bullying and Equalities module, a video walking staff through the process of recording an incident as well as resources on using the Business Intelligence reporting tool. The resources are available from the SEEMiS website.

Support and training

• Keeping Trauma in Mind by Education Scotland aims to help create a trauma informed and responsive education workforce that is capable of recognising where people affected by trauma and adversity and to be able to respond in ways that prevent further harm and support recovery.
• respectme and LGBT Youth Scotland resource for schools and organisations on effectively challenging homophobia, biphobia and transphobia
• respectme – free online anti-bullying training and resources
• SEEMiS has developed technical guidance and a short video to support school staff who are responsible for inputting data into the module.
• Education Scotland training on relationships (including professional learning available on the Inclusion, Wellbeing and Equalities Professional Learning Framework)
• Anti-racist professional learning, such as Building Racial Literacy, and guidance on promoting anti-racist education
• LGBT inclusive education resources and professional learning
• I Am Me Scotland – Education platform offering resources and training on a range of issues including child exploitation online, vaping, county lines, bullying and tackling prejudice against disability
• Action on Prejudice resources including activity packs, research, action plans, policy documents and more resources shared by partners from across Scotland. They all relate to taking action against discrimination, hate crime and prejudice.

Online bullying

• Legislation relevant to aspects of online safety, including the safe and responsible use of mobile phones, can be found in Appendix C5 of the Scottish version of the online safety policy tool for schools, 360 Degree Safe Scotland. The 360 Degree Safe Scotland self-review tool is free to use and is intended to help schools review their online safety policy and practice.
• If you’re worried about online abuse or the way someone is communicating with a child online, you can report it through the National Crime Agency’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) command. Children can also report inappropriate content themselves.
• For more information on setting up devices and accounts see Education Scotland’s Cyber Resilience and Digital Safety page.
• You can report distressing online content to the Report Harmful Content website, including threats, bullying, suicide or self-harm content, violent content and porn.
• Children and young people can report nude images and videos of themselves online and get them removed through the Report Remove tool on the Childline website.
• Children and young people can also use Take It Down, which is a tool from the National Center for Missing and Exploited children. This can be used to remove images and videos, or to stop images from being shared online.
• The Revenge Porn Helpline helps support people aged 18 and over who have had intimate images shared online without their consent.
• You can also report distressing content seen on social media directly to the platform you saw it on. Go to the platform’s help section to find out what to do.
• You should report child sexual abuse content to the Internet Watch Foundation.
• If you feel someone is abusing, exploiting or likely to exploit a child or children, or you believe a child or young person is at risk of being a victim, call Police Scotland on 101. If you think they may be in immediate danger, dial 999 and speak to the police immediately. The Police Scotland website has more information on what happens when you make a call, and how to get in touch by text or via contact Scotland-BSL.