“Raising awareness among adults: a new step in the fight against school bullying”
Bullying at school is a scourge that affects many children and adolescents around the world. Faced with this reality, the authorities are mobilizing and putting in place actions to put an end to this phenomenon. In France, a national campaign has just been launched by Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne in order to raise adults’ awareness of the voices of children who are victims.
This new initiative is part of an interministerial plan to combat school bullying. A single call number, 3018, has also been set up to allow victims of harassment, as well as their loved ones, to report cases and receive help.
The campaign aims to further free children’s voices by offering them an anonymous self-assessment grid. This assessment will make it possible to identify the presence of cases of harassment in educational establishments. All students from CE2 to final year are invited to complete this questionnaire, adapted to each level of schooling. It includes around forty questions aimed at detecting whether children are victims of school bullying.
The national day against school bullying, which will take place at the Claude Debussy college in Paris, will be an opportunity for the Prime Minister, accompanied by the first lady Brigitte Macron and the Minister of National Education Gabriel Attal, to discuss with students, teaching teams and the college’s anti-harassment ambassadors. This exchange will notably place emphasis on the prevention and detection of harassment situations.
In addition to self-assessment, the plan to combat school bullying also includes empathy courses in nursery and primary schools, the confiscation of harassers’ mobile phones by a judge and the creation of dedicated units in academies. A national map of harassment cases will be established using data collected in anonymous questionnaires.
This campaign aims to change mentalities and raise adults’ awareness of the importance of children’s voices. It is essential not to minimize what children who are victims of bullying experience and to provide them with adequate support. The fight against school bullying is everyone’s business, adults and children, and requires general mobilization to put an end to this scourge.