A Message from Roland Harmon
Dear Prevention Partners:
October is National Bullying Prevention Awareness month. It highlights the importance of encouraging young people to be respectful, thoughtful and kind towards one another. The National Association of School Psychologists points out that over 3.2 million students are victims of bullying each year. Every new school year brings opportunities for young people to form new relationships, spend time online sharing the events of the day at school and work towards adjusting to a new set of both academic and social expectations.
Much of our prevention work with young people takes place in the school setting. Prevention practitioners can play a key role in supporting school staff, parents and students by facilitating communication opportunities that help to:
- Identify conflict, bullying and harassment incidents as well as help young people and parents to know the difference between indirect and direct meanness;
- Direct parents and young people to share what they observe or experience with those adults in the school who are concerned with addressing bullying, harassment or mean behavior;
- Encourage parents and young people to understand a school’s process for reporting incidents of suspected bullying, harassment or mean behavior.
There is a great resource to help parents specifically navigate through helping young people experience physical and emotional safety. I invite you to share the upcoming webinar facilitated by The Partnership entitled Bullying Prevention 101 within your network of adults who nurture our young people scheduled for November 13, 2017 from 3:00 – 4:00 p.m.
I would like to take this opportunity on behalf of all of us at The Partnership to thank Kristen Granatek for her leadership in the prevention area. Kristen has left The Partnership to pursue other opportunities. We wish her well.
We continue our collective work to ensure Connecticut’s young people and families are strong and healthy. We have cast a wide net through our job posting process for Kristen’s replacement. A full description of the Director of Prevention Services can be found on our website. Please feel free to share this job posting with colleagues in your network.
As we approach the upcoming holidays, we will be working hard to develop key messages that help to prevent binge drinking among our young people and other risky behaviors associated with this time of year. Prevention is strong at all levels in Connecticut: statewide, regional and local. We are confident that coalition leaders, youth and prevention workers, teachers and principals, faith leaders and law enforcement officers will continue our commitment to do all we can to help our young people make healthy decisions during this season and throughout the year.
Roland Harmon is the Senior Director, Program Planning and Development at The Partnership. He can be reached at 860.757.3487 or Roland.Harmon@preventionworksct.org.