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Brian Frick is the Associate for Camp and Conferences Ministries with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). He has been involved in camp and conference ministry since high school. For the past ten years, Brian has served as program director of Johnsonburg Center in New Jersey, Westminster Woods in California, and Heartland Center in Missouri.

Camp and conference ministry compliments and partners with other ministry aspects of our church to foster faith development and reflection. As our communities and our church changes, our ministries need to grow and adapt with creative and emergent programming and leadership to meet new realities.

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January 20, 2010

Bullies

Brian Frick

When my son and I go out shopping, he usually carries his wallet "just in case" he sees a toy or deck of cards he can't live without.  I'm not sure if he has learned responsible financial management as my parents try to instill in him, or he has succumbed to the commercials blasted at him during Saturday morning cartoons (my bet is on the latter.)  But that's not the point of this blog.
As he was opening it, I saw he had a card with his picture on it.  From the part sticking out it looked like an ID card.  I asked to see it and he proudly showed me his "Anti Bullying Card" issued by his school and proudly signed by him.  I asked to see it and here is what it says:
Anti-bullying
We the Students agree to join together to stop bullying by signing the pledge:
By signing the pledge I agree to:

And below was his signature.

BullyOf course...it made me think of the work done in our centers during summer camp.  Though it was a small minority of the campers who attended camp, I will not lie and say that bullying never happened in the camp programs I oversaw, or that I was always good at addressing it.  I did have at least one call after each summer over the years from upset parents who told me their children told them of bullying at camp when they returned home.   I would always ask, "why did they not share this?"  And never got a good answer.

It took me a few years to educate myself on bullying and reading as many books as I could on the topic and then helping my staff by including a portion in staff training each year directly focused on bullying.
Bullying is a part of our culture.  You can't wave a magic wand and make it go away.  You can't guarantee it won't happen ANYWHERE in our society so our camp programs are not immune.  You CAN dedicate yourself to taking action to address bullying through education and action with your staff and campers.
My son's Bullying Pledge card and his proud smile at showing it reminded me that it is through education and pre-emptive (not reactive) action that we head bullying off.  He is in a wonderful school with happy kids and a very low level of bullying.  I'm sure he will encounter bullying, but it took a whole school effort and an intentional program to minimize bullying in the school
 What are you doing to address bullying?  Do you duck and cover and respond with embarrassment as I did in my first few years of camp program leadership?  Do you have a training program?  Do campers learn how to address bullying?  Have you seen a rise or reduction in bullying? 
I would love for you to share your experiences, good and bad by commenting on this post.  Maybe we can learn from each other what resources and programs we have access to or we have implemented with success in our programs.

(No, that is not my son in the picture!)