Equipping Students to Prevent Bullying

To prevent bullying the B.I.O.N.I.C. Team started the “Prevent Bullying by Just Saying H.I.” program to empower students to change the climate of their school to a more caring climate. “H” stands for Help – get help from an adult in the school if they see bullying so they can stop it or intervene. If students heard about an earlier bullying incident – even on social media – they are to report it to an adult so it can be addressed. “I” stands for “Initiate Contact” sometime that day with the bullied student to let him/her know it was wrong and they didn’t deserve it.

Often when students are bullied the reason they don’t want to come back to school is embarrassment or wondering what other students think about them – are they weak, did they deserve it, what’s wrong with them. By B.I.O.N.I.C. Team members reaching out to them, they can “save face” and know that they are still accepted in the school.

The B.I.O.N.I.C. Team created two videos for each school level (elementary, middle/junior high, and high school) to help role out the program. One is a short video about two minutes that can be shown to the students on video announcements or in an assembly to the entire school introducing the students to what the program is all about.

Then there is a longer video (about four minutes) that can be shown in a staff meeting with an introduction by a school counselor explaining the B.I.O.N.I.C. Team and the “Prevent Bullying by Just Saying H.I.” program, and then includes the two-minute video that we mentioned above so the staff will see what will be shown to the students. Here are the videos:

2-Minute Elementary School Announcement                                                       

4-Minute Elementary Staff Meeting Announcement

2-Minute Middle School Announcement   

4-Minute Middle School Staff Meeting Announcement

2-Minute High School Announcement 

4-Minute High School Staff Meeting Announcement

If schools have the capability, we encourage them to create their own 2-minute video featuring their own students with the same content as in the above videos. That would be more fun for the students to see their own classmates in the videos. Let us know if you have any questions. We are also considering having a contest for the schools to see who can make the best video for their school. Keep an eye out in the fall for details of a possible contest.