GUIDANCE counsellor and psychotherapist Kayson Jones is urging parents to listen to their children when they complain of being bullied, and to take action by following up with their teachers.

“If a child comes home and is saying: this is what is happening to me, they should not treat it lightly. Investigate. Find out what is going on at school and find out the best solution that’s possible. Sometimes it’s only when it becomes severe that sometimes it gets to the school counsellor or dean of discipline, and in checking the history of the problem you realise that others were aware and perhaps did not treat the situation as best as they could. Even the bully could have been helped as well if persons were being vigilant and responsive,” Jones explained.

He was speaking against the background of the just-released, first-ever national study on bullying, which was commissioned by the Child Development Agency (CDA). The 2013/14 study found that nine out of 10 students who participated in the survey had seen a child being bullied; and that 70 per cent of bullying takes place on playgrounds in schools and communities. Close to 30 per cent of the children said they feared attending school because of bullying.

Jones said that, although some people may not see bullying as a major issue, it does have grave psychological repercussions. “Some of it brings some amount of trauma. They (children) feel fearful, threatened. Deep inside there is a lot of fear and intimidation, and depression. Some people who are bullied may feel like the situation is unique to them. It’s multi-faceted, and you will find variations on how bullying may have an impact on one person as against another,” he told the Jamaica Observer.

In the meantime, the guidance counsellor said that, while he wouldn’t directly single out overcrowding in the Jamaican public school system as a factor in bullying, the argument could hold some water, if put into proper context.

“I don’t have any empirical evidence (of that)…I wouldn’t say it’s because of the overcrowding. There is an extent to which I would want to agree with that, because if a teacher feels like he or she cannot respond to every complaint in the class, then it’s valid in those cases. They may underestimate the intensity of some of those challenges, then you could consider overcrowding to be an issue there,” he elaborated.

However, Jones said that, where order and discipline is reinforced and maintained, instances of bullying can be minimised, with the support of school counsellors. “In those instances, you find no matter how large or small that school is, then the issues are contained and controlled,” he stated.

The study titled, ‘Investigating the Prevalence and Impact of Peer Abuse (Bullying) on the Development of Jamaica’s Children’, was funded by UNICEF and conducted by PSearch Associates Co Ltd.

International estimates are that 200 million children and youth are being abused by their peers each year. The CDA says definitions of bullying typically include: aggression or hostility, repetition of the negative behaviour, intent to harm, and a power imbalance between perpetrator and victim. Exclusions, however, include playful and/or friendly teasing and fights/arguments between children of equal strength. Hence, the study defined bullying to be “when one student is troubled, attacked, or made fun of repeatedly by another student(s)”.

The Ministry of Education’s revised safety and security manual to address bullying is to be issued to schools in September. The policy mandates administrators to provide guidelines for creating awareness about bullying in schools, as well as identify sanctions for breaches. Also, all reports of bullying must be documented, data kept, and steps taken to assist both victims and offenders.