Stopping the Cycle of Cyber Bullying Among Today's Youth

Steve Adubato goes on-location to the Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey to talk with Marsha Atkind, Executive Director & CEO, Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey, about bullying between youth and teens, the prevalence of cyber bullying and ways to stop the cycle of abuse.

4/2/19 #2207

 

 

 

 

Excerpt:

"Steve Adubato. I'm here at the Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey. And it is my honor to introduce the leader of that team, Marsha Atkind, who is a person who... we started this conversation, I don't know, a year ago? Yeah. We just finished a forum, not to air, but we interviewed every person who was part of that forum called Breaking the Cycle of Teen Violence... excuse me, Teen Abuse and Teen Bullying. And I just said this to you that... trust me, there's a question here, it was a hard conversation to have? It was a very tough conversation to have. Because? Well first of all, I think that people are coming from it from different perspectives. We had educators, we had people who run not-for-profits, people who are psychologists... And we had people who represent different communities who are the subjects of bullying. And I think that even though there are some things that happen in general, you know, that are the same in all of those situations, there are some things that are different. We had folks from the LGBTQ+ community? Right. Right. We had somebody who had recently lost a child as a result of online bullying, and perhaps... Suicide. 12 years old? Yes. 12 years old. 12 years old? We hear that far too often. I mean it's horrifying. I think that what she said had a lot of validity, which is that online platforms magnify bullying and make it much worse. You know, it used to be, if you and I and a couple of other people were together, and somebody said something hurtful to someone else... Right. ...it really hurt the person who was the target, but it was confined to the four or five or two or however many people were in the room. And with social media? With social media, it's multiplied. It could be out in the whole world. Everybody in high school, or everybody in junior high school, could see that. Their parents could see that. And it never goes away. It lives there forever. The other part of that conversation... by the way, we are only able to do what we're doing because the Healthcare Foundation committed resources to our initiative, plus a range of the other folks who were part of this conversation, not-for-profits, and others who are not. My question is, why is this teen bullying, teen abuse, and elder abuse, which we'll do an additional program on, why is that the purview of the Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey? Well, we've discovered... I should've asked that after we got the grant, I didn't ask that before. [laughter] Yeah. Okay. But..."