It's anti-bullying week and the OPP are trying to get the message out that change can start with one person.
The OPP are encouraging people to stand up and speak out against bullying.
It's anti-bullying week and Constable Stacey Culbert says no one should have to stand by and be bullied.
"We want everyone to kind of empower themselves. We want them to be the one to stand up. The three different types of bullying that we always talk about are: you are the bully, the bullied or the victim, or you're a bystander. The bystanders play a huge role in making sure they add that support to it and not add fuel to the fire."
Bullying can come in many different forms including physical, verbal, social, and electronic. Culbert says it's important for parents to recognize bullying in all its forms as well as the effect it can have on kids. She says some kids with withdraw into themselves, but that's not always the case. "The opposite can happen as well - and we see it occurring quite frequently as well where they start to act out aggression. Some of the big things that we notice is that if someone is bullied whether it's occurring now or occurring in the past they tend to want to get some of the attention back on themselves whether it be negative or positive attention."
Of course this isn't just an issue for kids, adults can find themselves experiencing bullying at the office or workplace as well.
The OPP do have several strategies in place to deal with bullying when it gets out of hand. "If it escalates too high then the police are called in," says Culbert. "We have several different approaches we can take - it all depends on the incident. Whether it's getting everyone in the same room, talking about it, figuring out where the situation lies, or there could be charges for criminal harassment, assaulting behaviour, things like that."
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