Empowering Bystanders

We empower bystanders to action when we:

  • help them see that their silence makes aggressive students more powerful and contributes to the harm done to the target;
  • model positive behavior for them through our own actions;
  • protect them from retaliation;
  • discourage them from confronting aggressive youth directly about their behavior in most situations, and instead, help them find a wide range of safer and more effective interventions to use;
  • encourage them to tell adults about the cruel behavior they see;
  • and help them find ways to reach out in friendship to targets of bullying and isolated peers.

We can do this in classroom meetings, in school assemblies, and in conversations with individual students.

Some middle school students wrote for advice about what they could do. Here is a letter to them.

Next: Bullying by teachers and other school staff.

For more information, see Stan's books
Schools Where Everyone Belongs and
Empowering Bystanders in Bullying Prevention.

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See results of the Youth Voice research project led by Stan Davis and Charisse Nixon. More than 11,000 young people have told us what works and what doesn't work when youth are mistreated by peers.

Schools Where Everyone Belongs cover

Stan Davis's first book: Schools Where Everyone Belongs: Practical Strategies for Reducing Bullying, second edition (with Julia Davis), published by Research Press.
Download order form (PDF file).
Order directly from the publisher or order from Amazon.com.
Quantity discounts available: please contact Research Press.

NEW: This book is available in Spanish from Research Press: Crecer sin miedo. Estrategias positivas para prevenir el acoso escolar o bullying.

Empowering Bystanders in Bullying Prevention K-8 cover

Stan's second book with Julia Davis, Empowering Bystanders in Bullying Prevention K-8, is available from Research Press. Download order form (PDF file) or order from Amazon.com.

Trainings and Resources:

Videos and supplementary CD for Schools Where Everyone Belongs

Consultation via phone and email

Teacher Training Workshops and Student Workshops: now scheduling for September 2010 and later

Slide presentation for you to use