The Center for Prevention of Abuse

Steps To Respect: A Bullying Prevention Program

Steps To Respect is a curriculum from the Committee For Children, a nonprofit organization that seeks to foster the social and emotional development, safety, and well-being of children through education and advocacy. To learn more about Steps To Respect and Committee for Children, access their website at www.cfchildren.org

Bullying Defined

Bullying is unfair and one-sided. It happens when someone keeps hurting, frightening, threatening, or leaving someone out on purpose.

Key elements in defining bullying:

Bullying involves a power imbalance in which the child doing the bullying has more power due to such factors as age, size, support of the peer group, or higher status.
Bullying is usually a repeated activity in which a particular child is singled out more than once and often in a chronic manner.
Bullying is carried out with intent to harm the targeting child.
Bullying includes physical aggression, verbal insults, the spreading of malicious rumors or gossip, and threats of exclusion from the peer group.

Targeting Bullying with Steps To Respect

Steps to Respect: A Bullying Prevention Program is designed to decrease bullying at school and help students build more supportive relationships with each other. The program's dual focus on bullying and friendship is based on research showing that friendship protects children from the harmful effects of bullying.

Students learn a variety of friendship skills, including strategies for making and keeping friends, and steps for joining a group activity. Steps to Respect also teaches children skills for coping with bullying, including recognizing bullying, using assertive behaviors to refuse bullying, and reporting bullying to adults.

Because many children become involved as bystanders to bullying (in both helpful and harmful ways), Steps to Respect emphasizes that all members of a school community must take responsibility for decreasing bullying.

Bringing Steps to Respect Into the Classroom

The Prevention Services Department trained over 1,600 students and school staff in Steps to Respect with 515 presentations during the 2008-2009 school year. We provide this program to students in grades 3-6 with 45 minute weekly classroom presentations over 8-10 weeks. Staff training is an important part of bringing this program to your school, and trained prevention educators provide All-Staff Trainings and Coaching Trainings for school staff. We can also assist in the formation of a steering committee of parents and community members who are interested in getting involved in preventing bullying in the school.

To learn more about Steps to Respect, contact the Prevention Services Department at (309) 691-0551.

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