Children can beat bullies with Guardian Anonymous Reporting
FOURWAYS – The Guardian Anonymous Reporting app is giving children a safe and incognito way to report bullying and abuse to their school.
What if fighting the scourge of bullying was as simple as letting your child download a smartphone application (app)?
The Fourways Review previously reported on the efforts of Fourways resident Samantha Heald and her Cool2BeKind initiative, which aims to address bullying among school-aged children by training teachers, talking to and with children about issues around bullying and engaging with all stakeholders around the issue through dialogue (Ordinary community members do extraordinary things: The fight against bullying: It’s cool to be kind, [Week ending 12 October, 2018]. Now that fight is getting some digital help from the Guardian Anonymous Reporting app.
“Bullying breaks people,” Heald previously told the Fourways Review.
“It impacts them for the rest of their life and is harmful.”
The Guardian app aims to create a digital avenue to address the problem as well. The idea was conceived by Marc Hardwick, a child abuse investigator, about two and a half years ago who then brought on developers to create the app. The app is free to download and allows users to anonymously report instances of bullying or abuse to teachers at their school. When a particular school opts in (for a once-off fee of R1 250 and R500 a month after that), these reports will go to a group of adults (teachers, heads of grade etc) in the school’s leadership to address and investigate the report and hopefully end the bullying.
“I think there is a number of reasons why anonymous reporting will work [in the fight against bullying],” Hardwick said.
“The children of today have less EQ [emotional intelligence] than previous generations and don’t always deal well with conflict. They are also growing up in a world which is cyber-driven and they are comfortable with using technology.”
Heald also points out that digital reporting means that the information gets to an adult that the child is likely to trust.
“With bullying, abuse and sexual abuse children are usually too scared to tell parents about it, and rarely tell other children. In fact, the person they are most likely to trust enough to tell is a teacher.”
Reports of bullying can be received by adults in real time, and can also help the school take note of particular times at which and locations where incidents happen regularly, which can lead to preventative measures being taken.
The partnership between the Guardian app and Cool2BeKind is particularly effective because while Heald’s initiative is mostly focused on children in Grade 5 and younger, Hardwick’s app is most likely to be used by older children in Grade 5 and up who are allowed to have a smartphone.
“From my point of view, people can get involved with Cool2BeKind or not, as long as they have the Guardian Reporting app.”
According to Hardwick, although false reporting was a concern to him when he had the idea, of the 150 000 users to date only one false report has ever been discovered. Another problem – that a child cannot gain help from their school if the school has not opted in – is also something he has considered.
“On the app, children can choose their school from a drop-down menu and can also choose ‘my school is not on the list’ if necessary. In that case, their report will come to me and I will approach the school about the issue. If the school decides not to join, I will help the child with advice or where to find other resources.”
To watch a video which explains the app in detail, visit this link: https://www.theguardian.co.za/schools/anonymous-reporting-app/
Details: www.theguardian.co.za; dee@kidz2kidz.co.za.
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