This is similar to the camp based presentation, but with a few different pictures and a more focus on adult groups.

1. Creating Non-Bullying
Communities
Using radical welcome to build strong community.

2. What is Bullying?
 Bullying is when one person uses an imbalance of
power to hurt, humiliate or exclude another over a
period of time.

3. What is Bullying?
 Teasing is not bullying unless it is always the same
person being teased. Mutual teasing is an important
part of social interaction.

4. What is Bullying?
 Not being made a part of a group is not bullying
unless that exclusion is deliberate and wide spread.

5. What is Bullying?
 Losing a fight is not being bullied, unless the fights
are frequent and the person always loses.

6. The Costs of Bullying
 Victims of bullying feel isolated, their learning is
negatively affected and it may cause some social
problems in the future. On the other hand most
victims are able to get past the abuse and live
productive lives.

7. The Costs of Bullying
 The bullies tend to continue their antisocial behaviour
and have a much greater risk of substance abuse,
abusive relationships and criminal behaviour.

8. The Costs of Bullying
 The community is fractured by bullying. This
brokenness affects everyone’s ability to function fully.

9. Causes of Bullying
 Many people still think that bullying is just a part of
childhood.

10. 10
Bullying doesn’t stop with age.
 It is a sad truth that we don’t grow out of bullying. In
fact bullying becomes established as management in
work and volunteer situations. Though not as often
physical. The psychological and emotional bullying
that happens in adult grouping is no less isolating and
damaging to the individual and the group. The
learned behaviours of children become our practice
as adults unless we become mindful of them and
make a deliberate change.

11. Causes of Bullying
 Bullies and victims both have lower social skills and
function differently in groups than their peers.

12. Causes of Bullying
 Bullies use their tactics to achieve a short term goal.
They are often incapable of conceptualizing long term
consequences.

13. Causes of Bullying
 Bullies learn their tactics from inconsistent and/or
abusive parenting. They may also become bullies to
stop being victims.

14. Responses to Bullying
 Many anti-bullying programs simply shift the focus of
bullying from the victim to the bully. Any response
which shames the bully or punishes the bully will be
seen by the bully as unjust. It will cement the
behaviour rather than eliminate it.

15. Responses to Bullying
 Removing the victim from the situation may be
penalizing the victim for being bullied. Removing the
bully will mean that they don’t learn appropriate skills
for social interaction.

16. A Community Solution
 The issue of bullying is a community issue. The
solution is a community solution.

17. A Community Solution
 If we are living radical welcome, we must welcome
the bully and the victim into a new way of relating, not
just with each other, but with the community as a
whole.

18. A Community Solution
 When a community is integrated and healthy,
everyone learns successful ways of fulfilling needs.
When they have a problem fulfilling needs, the
community responds to help.

19. Three parts of Welcome
Diversity
 When we make a conscious effort to name and
welcome diversity, difference becomes strength.
Imagine playing a hockey game with only goalies on
your team. We need all kinds of people, the more
kinds we have the richer we are as a community. Very
often we subtly suggest that difference is weakness. It
is in how the leadership in our groups manage people
who don’t quite fit in. If they are always pushing them
to be like the others, they are not modeling welcoming
diversity. It is important to train staff to see many ways
of participating.

20. Diversity

21. Three parts of Welcome
Relationship
 In community relationship is at the core. We want to
teach healthy relationships with each other in what
ever situation we find ourselves. The first lesson is
how the leadership relates to each other. The second
is how the leadership relates to the volunteers. This is
where it is important to keep an eye on teasing. While
teasing is an important tool for building relationships,
it can’t be allowed to be one sided or focused on one
individual. Having leadership who don’t mind being
teased and model healthy exchange is vitally
important. The value of names is huge here. When
the staff know their camper’s names, the campers
feel part of the team.

22. Three parts of Welcome
Relationship

23. Three parts of Welcome
Courage
 Courage sounds like a difficult thing to teach, but
once people know that courage is a response to fear,
not the absence of it, it becomes easier. The truth is
that taking action in a community requires courage.
Suggesting another way of doing things, taking the
side of a victim, becoming a friend to a bully all take
courage. It also takes courage for a community to
acknowledge that bullying is not ‘their’ problem, but
‘our’ problem. Naming things gives us power over
them, and naming bullying as a problem in the
community will empower solutions.

24. Three parts of Welcome
Courage

25. Bullies and the Bible
 There are lots of examples of bullies in scripture. King
Saul was a bully as were many of the Kings that
followed, some of the interaction of the disciples
suggests that they had bullies among them. The
important thing to note is that violent response to
bullying is not what the Bible teaches. What we see
again and again through the stories is that the
response to bullying was the restoration of
relationship. Jesus didn’t throw the disciples out, he
kept teaching them and showing them the radical
welcome of the Dominion of God.

26. Bullies and the Bible

27. How do we respond?
 Bullying is going to happen. Everyone comes with
their learned behaviours. That means some will fall
into bullying behaviour while others have issues that
may lead to them being targets. Even if there are no
easy targets, the bullying behaviour may still happen.
If we respond by coming down on the bully and
blaming/shaming them then they don’t learn about
relationship. This is where the idea of restorative
justice is helpful. How do we restore relationships that
have been broken? It is a very different question than
whose fault it is.

28. Making it work
 The key to creating non-bullying community is the
leadership. Not leadership in terms of telling people
how to behave or not behave, but leadership in terms
of how the people in charge treat each other.

29. Making it work
 A vital healthy leadership team will model strong
community and the group will follow.

30. Making it work
 Find and encourage the natural leaders in the social
groups. Everyone wants to be ‘cool’. If the cool ones
refuse to bully, most of the others will.

31. Questions
For more information see http://bit.ly/nonbullying