The Center for Safe Schools and the Highmark Foundation partnered to develop this new Pennsylvania Bullying Prevention Toolkit website that provides centralized, authoritative, easy-to-use information, tools and best practices to help families, schools and communities recognize, understand and prevent bullying.

For parents, this toolkit ensures that they have a fast track to assessing and meeting needs when bullying occurs. Along with tips for parents whose children are bullied and advice for parents whose children bully others, it includes helpful suggestions from kids who have been bullied themselves.

This toolkit provides specific information about how to differentiate between bullying and conflict, how to respond to cyberbullying and potential legal implications of bullying-type behaviors. It contains a guide for connecting children to relevant assistance, a sample letter informing the school of a bullying incident, and a list of vetted resources on bullying intervention and support.

The information and resources on this site will be especially valuable to schools that do not have bullying prevention programs in place; and to agencies typically called upon in crisis situations. This toolkit will help educators and others working with youth – including health care professionals, coaches and afterschool staff – prevent bullying and support children affected by it.