In the News (Delaware Gazette):

BV junior leads charge against bullying

Abbey Fields sits in front of Buck­eye Val­ley High School where she is a junior. She started the “Thank Good­ness I’m Female (T.G.I.F.)” pro­gram aimed at address­ing rela­tional aggres­sion among girls. (Gazette | Melissa Mackey)

MELISSA MACKEY

Staff Writer

Abbey Fields, a Buck­eye Val­ley High School junior, knows what it’s like to be bul­lied since she expe­ri­enced it first­hand in ele­men­tary school.

“I expe­ri­enced almost all of it,” said Abbey, 17. “I was sex­u­ally harassed. Cyber­bul­ly­ing, gos­sip, rumors, verbal.”

Abbey’s mother, Beckie Fields, said that the bul­ly­ing was so bad that she even pulled her daugh­ter out of school for a period of time.

“It’s very real and harm­ful,” Fields said. “I don’t think we can do enough to edu­cate on how harm­ful it can be.”

In today’s age of smart­phones and social media, a per­son can vir­tu­ally bully another from any­where, Abbey said.

Abbey’s neg­a­tive expe­ri­ences with bul­ly­ing got her think­ing at a Youth 2 Youth work­shop she attended at Cap­i­tal Uni­ver­sity and how she could bring some­thing pos­i­tive back to the com­mu­nity. And that was how Thank Good­ness I’m Female — or T.G.I.F. — was born.

Abbey worked with Brande Urban, a pre­ven­tion edu­ca­tor with Help Line of Delaware and Mor­row coun­ties, to develop the pro­gram aimed at address­ing rela­tional aggres­sion among girls. Abbey even wrote and secured a grant through the Women’s Fund of Cen­tral Ohio that trained Buck­eye Val­ley High School stu­dents to lead meet­ings in the spring and fall for selected Buck­eye Val­ley Mid­dle School girls.

Abbey also con­ducted a youth sur­vey with results indi­cat­ing that out of 79 female stu­dents in the Buck­eye Val­ley dis­trict, 89 per­cent have felt excluded, had a rumor spread about them or had been given a dirty look by another female. More than 72 per­cent had one of these events occur in mid­dle school.

“These girls also report feel­ing rejected,” Abbey said.

The teen-led meet­ings, which are hosted at both Buck­eye Val­ley and Genoa mid­dle schools, focus on chang­ing rela­tional aggres­sion and pro­mot­ing strate­gies to stop bul­ly­ing through dis­cus­sion, inter­ac­tive activ­i­ties, group art and videos.

Those par­tic­i­pat­ing in the pro­gram even par­tic­i­pated in self-defense classes dubbed “Girls Kick Butt Day,” which teaches con­fi­dence and tech­niques in deal­ing with bullies.

T.G.I.F. is even the sub­ject of acco­lades. In Decem­ber, the Ohio Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion awarded the 2011 Asset Builder Award to the pro­gram for a school dis­trict youth-led group.

Abbey is going into the program’s third year and sees a big change in girls who are selected for the pro­gram. She said that other schools are either imple­ment­ing their own pro­grams or ask­ing for T.G.I.F. at their schools.

“We def­i­nitely want to help out in the Delaware com­mu­nity and expand out,” Abbey said.

She con­tin­ues look­ing for grant sources to keep the pro­gram going and will soon offer teacher and par­ent sessions.

“This gives teach­ers an oppor­tu­nity to see exactly what we teach the stu­dents,” Abbey said. “Par­ents don’t quite know what to do. Par­ents def­i­nitely strug­gle, so we’ll add a seg­ment for par­ents, too.”

Article link: http://delgazette.com/2012/02/bv-junior-leads-charge-against-bullying/