Activities to help Young People Deal with Bullying

This book of 56 photocopiable activities will help professionals to work through bullying issues with young people and address the underlying causes. The content covers:

• The impact of the group
• Belonging
• Social settings
• Norms
• Values
• Peer groups
• Friendships
• Power
• Isolation
• Responsibility
• Restorative work
• Conciliation work. 

The activities cover the range of bullying behaviours that can be seen in educational settings including:

• Considering whether a student is exhibiting bullying behaviours
• The role of the bystander and how those behaviours are contributory or not
• The perception of bullying as a behaviour choice
• The impact of bullying upon others.

The 56 activities include:

• Exploring the Concept: Am I a Bully? – This is an assessment activity to guide students through self-reflection
• It’s in the Throw of the Dice – Using a dice as a stimulus students discuss what constitutes bullying behaviour
• Mirror, Mirror on the Wall – This allows each student to explore how their behaviour is seen by other students
• Just Bin it – This activity gives students power over the language of taunts and jibes and allows the student to symbolically dispose of them
• Stop, it’s in Your Hands – This will show students that they have the power to help themselves in staying safe
• Choose Me – This activity explores whether students recognise a true description of themselves and how they feel about that description
• Put Yourself in Their Shoes – This is an activity exploring the concept of empathy as they put themselves in the victim’s shoes
• See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil – This activity is for students who may find themselves in situations as bystanders, to develop an understanding about bullying behaviours
• The Feelings Puzzle – This activity looks into the feelings, confidence and self-esteem of the victims and the support they may need
• Confidence: My Story – This activity explores how being bullied can feel and how to move forward
• Think About the Times – This is an activity about recognising and identifying when bullying incidents occur
• Are You an Active Bystander? (Part 1)– This activity explores issues around being a witness to a bullying incident
• Are You an Active Bystander? (Part 2) – This activity explores the qualities required to discover, create and encourage confidence to speak up effectively in the future
• Finding Help? – This helps students to acknowledge and discover where help is available
• Ladder of Opportunities – This is an activity about reflecting upon opportunities about what to do
• Respect – This activity helps students understand respect and shows them how to put this understanding into action
• Treat Others as You Would Like to Be Treated – This allows students to consider their actions and recognise that they can choose to treat others the way they would prefer to be treated themselves
• Am I a Bully Too? – This activity shows students that laughing or joining in bullying takes on a bullying nature themselves and how they need to take responsibility for their own actions
• Review and Reflection: Exploring the Concept: Am I a Bully Now? – This is a self-reflection activity designed to follow Am I a Bully Too?
• Moving Forward – Which Way? – This is an activity to promote recognition, self-reflection and form an action plan for the future. 

Each activity is laid out with an activity objective, an intended audience, activity instructions and how to end the activity. All of the activities have accompanying activity sheets. Most of the activities can be used discretely as stand-alone activities. However, one or two run consecutively e.g. baseline assessment and subsequent reassessment. Therefore the activities can be selected to address a particular need with a student.

The book also includes a Student Tracking and Feedback Workbook for leaders to track the activities used and evaluate their impact and effectiveness with students as well as providing valuable feedback and evidence. Also the activities, once complete, will provide you with proof of the work which has been done with the students, as evidence to both the students and other stakeholders.

Ultimately the book seeks to enhance the emotional well-being of young people as we move towards helping them to manage powerful emotions intelligently.