Stop Bullying: Speak Up

Last updated

Stop Bullying: Speak Up is a campaign of Cartoon Network to raise awareness of bullying issues and promote positive relationships. Cartoon Network's special programming on bullying issues during the month of October coincides with National Bullying Prevention Month. The campaign directs witnesses and victims of bullying to "speak up" and enlist the help of a teacher or other responsible adult. The campaign features documentaries, public service ads, and use of existing programs to carry the anti-bullying message on the network, and directs children, parents and educators to other resources about bullying issues, including an anti-bullying pledge.

Contents

History

Stop Bullying: Speak Up [1] was created in 2010 and has partnered with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (Stop Bullying.gov), Boys & Girls Clubs of America, Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), as well as The Anti-Defamation League and The Southern Poverty Law Center through its project, Teaching Tolerance, and other corporate sponsors.

In 2010, the network partnered with CNN to hold a bullying prevention town hall.

In 2011, the campaign participated in the first Bullying Prevention Summit [2] at the White House, hosted by President Barack Obama.

In 2012, the Cartoon Network television documentary, Speak Up, [3] included an introduction by Obama and featured children and teenagers talking about their experiences of bullying.

In 2013, The Bully Effect, [4] a documentary hosted by reporter Anderson Cooper of CNN in conjunction with Cartoon Network kicked off the campaign to boost bullying awareness.

In 2014, Stop Bullying: Speak Up reached the goal of 1 million people taking the pledge to Speak Up and stop bullying. [5]

In 2015, Signature CN programs such as Teen Titans Go! served as platforms for the anti-bullying message on the network. Families are encouraged to take the pledge. Cartoon Network participated as sponsor of the 2015 International Bullying Prevention Conference [6] in Denver, CO.

National Bullying Prevention Month was founded in the United States in 2006 by PACER's National Bullying Prevention Center. [7] (PACER is Parents Advocacy Coalition for Educational Rights, based in Minneapolis and Los Angeles.)

Development

Stop Bullying: Speak Up was created in response to feedback from the network's audience of children and youth ages 6–14, which showed that bullying was among the biggest problems faced by young people. Additional research also was conducted among its viewers in 2010 by R. Bradley Snyder, author of The 5 Simple Truths About Raising Kids. Snyder is director of The Dion Initiative for Child Well-Being and Bullying Prevention, in Arizona, which evolved from the work of Stop Bulling Az., founded by Nicole Stanton, wife of Phoenix mayor Greg Stanton.

Other advisors to the Stop Bullying: Speak Up campaign include:

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">America's Promise</span> Foundation in the United States

America's Promise Alliance is the nation's largest cross-sector alliance of nonprofit, community organizations, businesses, and government organizations dedicated to improving the lives of young people.

GLSEN is an American education organization working to end discrimination, harassment, and bullying based on sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression and to prompt LGBT cultural inclusion and awareness in K-12 schools. Founded in 1990 in Boston, Massachusetts, the organization is now headquartered in New York City and has an office of public policy based in Washington, D.C.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Center for American Progress</span> Liberal think tank in the United States

The Center for American Progress (CAP) is a public policy research and advocacy organization which presents a liberal viewpoint on economic and social issues. It has its headquarters in Washington, D.C.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ad Council</span> American nonprofit organization

The Advertising Council, commonly known as the Ad Council, is an American nonprofit organization that produces, distributes, and promotes public service announcements on behalf of various sponsors, including nonprofit organizations, non-governmental organizations and agencies of the United States government.

Pink Shirt Day is an annual event against bullying, held in Canada and New Zealand. Participants wear pink shirts and attend or host informative events to raise awareness about bullying, particularly in schools. Pink Shirt Day was started in 2007 in Canada, where it is held on the last Wednesday of February each year. It was adopted in New Zealand in 2009 and is observed annually on the third Friday of May.

MassResistance is an American organization that promotes anti-LGBT and socially conservative positions. The group is designated an anti-LGBT hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, in part for claims linking LGBT people with pedophilia and zoophilia, and claims that suicide prevention programs aimed at gay youth were created by homosexual activists to normalize and "lure" children into homosexuality.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Think Before You Speak (campaign)</span>

The Think Before You Speak campaign is a television, radio, and magazine advertising campaign launched in 2008 and developed to raise awareness of the common use of derogatory vocabulary among youth towards lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning (LGBTQ) people. It also aims to "raise awareness about the prevalence and consequences of anti-LGBTQ bias and behaviour in America's schools." As LGBTQ people have become more accepted in the mainstream culture more studies have confirmed that they are one of the most targeted groups for harassment and bullying. An "analysis of 14 years of hate crime data" by the FBI found that gays and lesbians, or those perceived to be gay, "are far more likely to be victims of a violent hate crime than any other minority group in the United States". "As Americans become more accepting of LGBT people, the most extreme elements of the anti-gay movement are digging in their heels and continuing to defame gays and lesbians with falsehoods that grow more incendiary by the day," said Mark Potok, editor of the Intelligence Report. "The leaders of this movement may deny it, but it seems clear that their demonization of gays and lesbians plays a role in fomenting the violence, hatred and bullying we're seeing." Because of their sexual orientation or gender identity/expression, nearly half of LGBTQ students have been physically assaulted at school. The campaign takes positive steps to counteract hateful and anti-gay speech that LGBTQ students experience in their daily lives in hopes to de-escalate the cycle of hate speech/harassment/bullying/physical threats and violence.

<i>The Political Cesspool</i> Far-right radio show in the United States

The Political Cesspool is a weekly far-right talk radio show founded by Tennessean political activist James Edwards and syndicated by the organizations Liberty News Radio Network and Accent Radio Network in the United States. First broadcast in October 2004 twice a week from radio station WMQM, per Edwards it has been simulcast on Stormfront Radio, a service of the white nationalist Stormfront website and as of 2011 is broadcast on Saturday nights on WLRM, a blues and southern soul radio station in Millington, Tennessee. Its sponsors include the white separatist Council of Conservative Citizens and the Institute for Historical Review, a Holocaust denial group.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kevin Jennings</span> American educator, author, and administrator.

Kevin Brett Jennings is an American educator, author, and administrator. He was the assistant deputy secretary for the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools at the U.S. Department of Education from July 6, 2009 – June 2011.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ari Ne'eman</span> American autism rights advocate

Ari Daniel Ne'eman is an American disability rights activist and researcher who co-founded the Autistic Self Advocacy Network in 2006. On December 16, 2009, President Barack Obama announced that Ne'eman would be appointed to the National Council on Disability. After an anonymous hold was lifted, Ne'eman was unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate to serve on the Council on June 22, 2010. He chaired the council's Policy & Program Evaluation Committee making him the first autistic person to serve on the council. In 2015, Ne'eman left the National Council on Disability at the end of his second term. He currently serves as a consultant to the American Civil Liberties Union. As of 2019, he also is a Ph.D. candidate in Health Policy at Harvard University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pamela Geller</span> American activist, blogger, commentator

Pamela Geller is an American anti-Muslim, far-right political activist, blogger and commentator. Geller promoted birther conspiracy theories about President Barack Obama, saying that he was born in Kenya and that he is a Muslim. She has denied genocides where Muslims were victims, including the Bosnian genocide and the Rohingya genocide.

Bullying Awareness Week is a national campaign in Canada conceived of by Canadian educator and Bullying.org president Bill Belsey. It was launched in 2003 by Family Channel and bullying.org. The campaign takes place during the third week each November and aims to raise awareness about bullying amongst students in Canada while promoting positive relationships and providing youth with real-life solutions to help them deal with bullying behaviour.

National Voices for Equality, Education and Enlightenment (NVEEE) is an American nonprofit organization that works to prevent bullying, violence, and suicide among youth, families and communities.

Deborah A. Temkin is an American child development and prevention research scientist, specializing in bullying prevention, school climate, and connecting education policy to healthy youth development. She was the Research and Policy Coordinator for Bullying Prevention Initiatives at the U.S. Department of Education from 2010 to 2012, where she was charged with coordinating the Obama administration's bullying prevention efforts, including launching StopBullying.gov. She was a finalist for the 2012 "Call to Service Medal" for the Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medals for her work at the Department. Temkin is currently the vice president for youth development and education research at Child Trends.

Dorothy Espelage is an American psychologist. She is the William C. Friday Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of North Carolina, and an international expert in bullying, youth aggression, and teen dating violence. She has authored several books including Bullying in North American Schools, Bullying Prevention and Intervention: Realistic Strategies for Schools, and Handbook of Bullying in Schools: an International Perspective.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steven Anderson (pastor)</span> Independent Baptist pastor

Steven Lee Anderson is an American preacher and founder of the New Independent Fundamentalist Baptist movement. He is pastor of Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona. He advocates for the death penalty for homosexuals, and prayed for the deaths of former U.S. president Barack Obama, and Caitlyn Jenner. He produced a documentary titled Marching to Zion in which he "championed a wide range of antisemitic stereotypes", according to Matthew H. Brittingham of Emory University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tenthwave Digital</span>

Tenthwave Digital is a digital agency founded in 2011 as a merger of three other digital agencies. It specializes in social marketing, digital strategy, website design and development, SEO and SEM, digital advertising, promotions, sweepstakes and technology. Its notable clients include PayPal, Time Warner, Duncan Hines, eBay, Google, Facebook, Visa, Pinnacle Foods and Snyder's-Lance.

Unity Day, the signature event of National Bullying Prevention Awareness Month, has been recognized in the United States since 2011. To participate in Unity Day, individuals, schools, communities, and businesses wear or share orange to unite for kindness, acceptance, and inclusion to prevent students being bullied. One in five school-age children report being bullied at school.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bystander Revolution</span> Anti-bullying organization

Bystander Revolution is an anti-bullying organization founded in 2014 by billionaire and author MacKenzie Scott, which offers advice about things individuals can do to defuse bullying. Its website includes hundreds of unscripted videos of people talking about their personal experiences with bullying.

Sameer Hinduja is an American social scientist. He serves as Professor of Criminology at Florida Atlantic University and co-director of the Cyberbullying Research Center. He has served as a Fulbright Specialist Scholar at Dublin City University and currently serves as Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard University. Hinduja is also the co-founder and Co-Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Bullying Prevention. He is an international expert in cyberbullying, sexting, sextortion, online and offline dating violence, digital self-harm, and related forms of online harm among youth. He has written seven books, including Bullying Today: Bullet Points and Best Practices, Bullying Beyond the Schoolyard: Preventing and Responding to Cyberbullying, and School Climate 2.0. His research publications have been cited approximately 20,000 times, and have appeared in such outlets as Journal of Adolescent Health, Journal of Youth and Adolescence, Journal of Interpersonal Violence, Computers in Human Behavior, and New Media and Society. Topics studied include empathy, psychological resilience, parenting, social and emotional learning, school climate, and well-being.

References

  1. Chen, Stephanie (2010-10-04). "After student's death, a weeklong look into bullying". CNN.com. Retrieved 2016-11-06.
  2. "Bullying Prevention Summit".
  3. "Obama Denounces Bullying On Cartoon Network Documentary, 'Speak Up' (VIDEO)". Huffington Post. 2012-03-19. Retrieved 2016-11-06.
  4. "404".{{cite web}}: Cite uses generic title (help)
  5. Network, Cartoon. "Cartoon Network Enlists One Million People to Share "I Speak Up" Online Videos to Kick off its Fifth Annual Stop Bullying: Speak Up Initiative".
  6. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-11-23. Retrieved 2016-09-29.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  7. "PACER's National Bullying Prevention Center". Pacer.org. Retrieved 2016-11-06.