ASEND - Anti Bullying and Harassment - Tutors and YP

Anti-Bullying and Harassment Policy

1. Policy Purpose

The Education Act 2002 and Education (Independent School Standards) Regulations 2014 outline a school's legal responsibility to both prevent and tackle bullying.

We recognise that we are not a school or college, but that children and young people will come into contact with adults, and indeed other children and young people, through the provision of the services that we provide.

The aim of this policy is to:

• prevent bullying from occurring

• allow our tutors and the children and young people they support to operate in a supportive, caring and safe environment without fear of being bullied

• allow an open and safe working environment for employees, workers and volunteers to operate.

We ensure that our employees, workers and volunteers that interact with our business have a clear understanding of what bullying is and are familiar with Asend’s policy on bullying.

This policy is to help these stakeholders prevent the onset of any form of bullying and to help deal with bullying if it occurs.

2. Definitions

Following NSPCC guidelines; Bullying is when individuals or groups seek to harm, intimidate or coerce someone who is perceived to be vulnerable (Oxford English Dictionary, 2018).

It can involve people of any age, and can happen anywhere – at home, school or using digital technologies (cyberbullying). This means it can happen at any time.

Cyberbullying is defined as the use of any technology, including smart phones, emails, social media channels or other outlets to harass, threaten, embarrass, intimidate or target a child or young person.

Unlike physical bullying, cyber-bullying can often be difficult to track as the cyberbully (defined here as the person responsible for the acts of cyber-bullying) can easily remain anonymous when threatening others online, encouraging them to behave more aggressively than they might do in a face-to-face scenario.

3. The Many Forms of Bullying

Bullying can take on many forms, including face-to-face and cyber actions. Bullying has many faces and may be driven by myriad reasons, including but certainly not limited to racism, faith, sexuality, transphobia, homophobia and SEND/disabilities:

• Verbal: Deliberately hurting feelings through name-calling etc.

• Physical: Deliberately hurting particular children or young people on a regular basis

• Indirect: spreading nasty stories about someone, exclusion from social groups, being made the subject of malicious rumours

• Flaming: Online fights usually through emails, instant messaging or chat rooms where angry and rude comments are exchanged.

• Denigration: Putting mean online messages through email, instant messaging, chat rooms, or websites set up to make fun of someone.

• Exclusion: Intentionally leaving someone out of a group such as instant messaging, friend sites, or other online group activities.

• Outing: Sharing secrets about someone online including private information, pictures, and videos.

• Trickery: Tricking someone into revealing personal information then sharing it with others.

• Impersonation: Pretending to be someone else when sending or posting mean or false messages online.

• Harassment: Repeatedly sending malicious messages to someone online.

4. The Effects of Bullying

Any form of bullying can lead to a myriad of negative effects for those affected, including:

• Emotional problems

• Psychological problems

• Physical stress

• Every child and young person is different, and there is no one path that a bullied person will follow. We advise all our employees, workers and volunteers to look out for specific signs that bullying may be taking place, as children and young people will often hide bullying from adults.

We ask that any employee, worker or volunteer with Asend who comes into contact with a child or young person look out for:

• loss of interest in activities they used to enjoy

• unexplainable injuries

• lost or destroyed clothing, books, electronics, or jewelry

• frequent headaches or stomach aches, feeling sick or faking illness

• changes in eating habits

• loss of interest in schoolwork

• refusal to attend school where other academic motivations are still present

• self-destructive behaviors, including self-harming

• sharing of suicidal thoughts or actions

5. Our Central Responsibility to Children and Young People

This policy is available to any employee, worker, volunteer or stakeholder in the child or young person’s development, including the school, parent, foster carer, social worker or local authority.

To protect the rights of all children and young people to have a safe and secure learning environment, Asend have a statutory obligation to continuously work towards preventing acts of bullying, harassment, and other forms of aggression and violence as these behaviours are unacceptable and interfere with both our tutor's ability to educate children and young people and their ability to learn.

If such a case arises, the employees, workers and volunteers at Asend will follow our anti-bullying guideline, which are laid out here in this policy.

This will enable our employees, workers and volunteers to:

• Identify children and young people displaying unacceptable behaviour and know how to support them in order that they develop the necessary skills to participate in tutorials and not distract other children and young people in the same tutorial

• Keep all children and young people safe and supported in their learning environment.

• We will keep a record of anything reported to us which we feel constitutes bullying. This may need to involve multiple parties.

Our Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) holds the ultimate responsibility to log and take the necessary action where he believes that bullying is occurring.

Any employee, worker or volunteer who provides a service to Asend or its partners, including schools, parents, foster carers, social workers or local authorities will be sent a copy of this Anti-Bullying and Harassment Policy and will ensure that they follow the procedures in place to deal with any suspected bullying.

Employees, workers and volunteers should:

• remain vigilant to any signs that the child or young person may be experiencing bullying at school or elsewhere

• be aware the children and young people will often be reluctant to openly share any experiences of bullying that they have been subject to

Where they suspect that bullying is occurring, they will:

• Inform Asend’s DSL by calling the office or emailing safeguarding@asend.co.uk as soon as physically possible

• Provide as much detail as possible, noting down the specifics of any incident or conversation which suggests that a child or young person may be the subject of bullying

The DSL will:

• Keep a detailed record of the conversation with the employee, worker or volunteer

• Where appropriate, raise the concern to any of or all of the school, parent, foster carer, social worker or local authority (where appropriate to do so and depending on the severity of the bullying reported).

The DSL holds the ultimate responsibility to manage any reports of bullying to the appropriate stakeholder in a timely manner.