United stand against bullying the key

 By Carolyn Aston

Re ‘Stawell unites in brave stand against scourge of bullying’, by Wes Hosking, published in The Herald Sun, July 18, 2014

Great to read about the Stawell community working together to address bullying!

Over the past three years CASSE’s Peaceful Schools Program (PSP) has been working very successfully with a group of Victorian schools to implement strategies to address bullying. CASSE’s PSP recognises that bullying, conflict and violence are symptoms of underlying problems and power dynamics, therefore all of a school’s communities need to work together to in order work through the underlying issues. The program is student-driven, as students are often aware of issues in the school yard that may be slipping ‘under the radar’ of teachers. CASSE’s PSP operates under the direction of child/adolescent psychoanalytic psychotherapists with extensive training and experience as mental health clinicians. Their ability to draw on this knowledge and experience and apply it to the school setting makes CASSE’s Peaceful Schools Program unique amongst other anti-bullying programs.

In recognition of the critical role parents play in preventing and responding to bullying, CASSE’s PSP is hosting a parent conference in Melbourne on the 27^th of August, ‘Peaceful Schools, Peaceful Parents – A Powerful Partnership to Maximise Student Performance and Wellbeing’. The aim of the Conference is to provide a forum for parents and carers to access experts in public health, mental health and teaching and to develop skills to assist their children, teenagers, and their schools in dealing with conflict, bullying and violence in order to create more peaceful schools. For more information visit https://www.casse.org.au/peaceful-schools-program/for-parents-2/parent-conference-2014/.  Bookings are available via http://www.trybooking.com/94285