Guarding against bullying
Anti-bullying Policy
The purpose of this policy:
Legal framework
This policy has been drawn up on the basis of law and guidance that seeks to tackle bullying, namely:
- The Children’s Act 1989 and 2004
- The Protection from Harassment Act 1997
- The Human Rights Act 2000
- The Equality Act 2010
- Working Together to Safeguard Children 2015
- Government Guidance on Bullying 2015
We recognise that
There is no legal definition of bullying. However, it’s usually defined as behaviour that is:
- Repeated
- Intended to hurt someone either physically or emotionally.
- Often aimed at certain groups e.g. because of race, religion gender or sexual orientation.
- One person or a group can bully others.
- Bullying can occur either face-to-face between individuals or groups or online, using information technology such as computers all mobile phones.
Bullying can include but is not exclusive to
- Verbal teasing or making fun of someone.
- Excluding children from games in conversation.
- Pressuring other children not to be friends with the person who is being bullied.
- Spreading hurtful remarks or passing round inappropriate photographs, images, drawings.
- Shouting at or verbally abusing someone.
- Stealing or damaging someone’s belongings.
- Making threats.
- Forcing someone to do something embarrassing, harmful or dangerous.
- Harassment on the basis of race, gender, sexuality or disability.
- Physical or sexual assault (although all sexual incidents and all but very minor physical incidents constitute abuse and must be dealt with in appropriate accordance with the child protection procedures).
- Bullying causes real distress. It can affect a person‘s health and development and at extreme, can cause significant harm.
- People are often targeted by bullies though not exclusively so because they appear different from others.
- We all have a role to play in preventing bullying and putting a stop to bullying.
When bullying occurs
YogaFrogs will respond to it by:
- Having a clear anti-bullying procedure in place.
- Providing support and training to staff and volunteers to deal with bullying professionally with out judgement or prejudice.
- Address the issue from the point of view of the child or young person bullied, the bully, any bystanders and YogaFrogs as a group.
- Review the plan developed to address the bullying in order to ensure that the problem has been resolved.
- Avoid any punishments that make the individuals concerned seem small, or look or feel foolish in front on others.
- Reviewing the situation that if the bullying continues, despite intervention, and in line with all participants feeling safe, that the bully or bullies will be asked to leave YogaFrogs.
Charlene Nash is responsible for monitoring the effectiveness of this policy.
It will be reviewed every two years. The next review is due on: 1st January 2020
Signed:
