Comm 4010 Public Relations Campaigns

Anti-Bullying Final Plan Book

By Adam Andrae, Christina Culyba, Katie Dorman, and Katherine Haywood

Table of Contents

Introduction Situation Analysis Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities Threats Research Objectives Target Audience Statistics Central Message/Theme Strategies Tactics/Action Plan Evaluation Summary Schedule / Budget References

3 3 3-4 4-5 5-6 6 6-7 7-8 8-9 10-12 12 12-13 13-16 17 17-18 19-20 21

Introduction Bullying is an increasingly common problem seen in the United States today. In order to reduce the overall amount of bullying instances and to instigate a societal shift in behavior, the Citizens Against Bullying are launching an anti-bullying campaign initiative. Situation Analysis CAB (Citizens Against Bullying) The purpose of this analysis is to provide an overview of both past and present anti-bullying campaigns in the state of Pennsylvania. In addition to highlighting the history of bullying campaigns in PA, we will also outline the plans and goals of Citizens Against Bullyings campaign strategy, which chooses to focus specifically on the Pittsburgh region of the state. In order to properly assess the aspects of our campaign, a SWOT analysis is performed to highlight the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Our goal is to highlight the positive traits this initiative can create in helping the young lives in distress from the bullying phenomenon. Strengths Many schools, healthcare institutions, and other organizations stand up in the fight against bullying. There are a lot of strengths that show when performing a SWOT analysis on Moon Township School District. First, the district is a smaller one compared to some others in Pennsylvania. This average size of students and parents will allow our message to spread easier and reach our target audience without any delay or miscommunications. Also, the size of the district will allow each student to be accounted for when attempting to calculate the effectiveness of our campaign.

4 Moon Township school district is also a very diverse district. This will prove to be a great basis for our campaign. When looking at bullying statistics from Pennsylvania, we can see that several races are culprits in bullying and the incidents are not limited to one specific race (safeschools, 2012). Therefore, we will be able to have a greater effect on our audience if we can form our message to the right types of students and their parents. Moon Township School District is also very involved with their parents. According to safeschools, 2012, the primary method of reporting a bullying incident is to the parents of the students involved. Having the district so involved and concerned with the parents will help us when trying to reach our target audience. Finally, the last strength Moon Township School District holds is its popularity and familiarity. Moon Township is a very well-known area in Pittsburgh. It is not only known for its location, but also for its safety. When our campaign is launched, other schools in the area or even statewide may take after the effectiveness of Moon Township and attempt to follow a trend in reducing bullying. It is always helpful to work with a well-known institution, organization, etc. to spread an effective message, and by Moon Township being a popular one, the effectiveness may even spread to other areas. There are many strengths associated with Moon Township. Alerting the public on the severity of the issue, along with encouraging the victims to seek help will prove to be beneficial to themselves, the school, and the community.

Weaknesses In an effort to combat bullying, Highmark implemented the Highmark Healthy High 5, a five year program that is based off of the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program, created in the 1980s by Dan Olweus of Norway. A report states that the program is most effective only if schools follow the core components of inclusiveness (involving everyone from janitors to school bus drivers to raise awareness of the issue), communication, and respect (Arnold, 2007). One weakness of MASD is that they may not be

5 fully utilizing each aspect of these tactics to reach maximum effectiveness. The report also states that when it comes to bullying programs, The ultimate goal is to sustain these programs for 10-15 years, (Arnold, 2007). Moon Townships website states that the Olweus Bully Prevention Program has only been implemented since the 2011 school year. One weakness is that the school district has not had the program in effect for the ideal amount of time and thus may not be seeing the ideal results that coincide with a program of a longer time span. Additionally, according to Moon Townships October 2013 Olweus Letter, teachers in all schools will conduct weekly class meetings where groups of approximately 20 students meet and discuss the program and topic of bullying (Moon Area School District, n.d.). One weakness is that this violates the inclusiveness requirement standard set by the Olweus program to reach the most effective campaign. Rather than holding individual classes where the bullying issue is discussed, the school district should meet in larger groups, perhaps by entire grades, and then separate into individual groups for more personal discussions. Opportunities One of the biggest opportunities present through bullying campaigns is to successfully decrease teen bullying in Pittsburgh area schools. This is also an opportunity to allow for positive change in students and to impact the students self esteem. Another benefit of these campaigns is to have a set of guidelines to follow and to know what to do when bullying occurs. Informational campaigns can also prevent teen suicide, physical, and emotional abuse. The campaign educates parents and teachers about what actions to take when bullying occurs, and can eventually make a change in the community. Antibullying campaigns can better inform the public of the serious health risks associated with teen bullying. Our main objective is to successfully give money to nonprofit organizations that support our cause, including government-funded programs. We also have the opportunity to get a significant amount of media coverage for our cause. The available media outlets include the local, regional, and possibly

6 national news and all forms of social media including Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr to spread awareness of teen bullying.

Our company has the ability to provide the community with information and support regarding teen bullying. To increase the awareness of teen bullying in males ages 10-14. To give the parents and teens as much information about bullying as possible. To train parents, teachers and students what to do when bullying occurs. To use the media including social media to get our message across the region

Threats There are many threats that can be found when it comes to anti-bullying campaigns. Some of the threats that seem to stand out the most include families denying that they are being bullied by a big corporation, people are afraid to speak up for their rights from this big corporation, and society does not seem to care about how serious this kind of bullying issue can be. Goal Statement Citizens Against Bullying wants to demonstrate and raise awareness of the harmful effects of bullying to parents of children in Moon Area Middle Schools, especially parents with male children ages 11 14. Additionally, CABs goal is to decrease overall bullying behavior in the secondary audience of male children ages 11- 14. Research In-depth internet research was conducted to discover the main age of middle school children that are most prone to bullying incidents. The Department of Education in Pennsylvania releases a school safety report each year that breaks down the incidents that occur in schools all over Pennsylvania; the

7 following information was gathered from the 2011 2012 Western Pennsylvania, Allegheny County report. In Western Pennsylvania, with the enrolment of 145,537 students in the 2011 2012 school year, 8,118 incidents were reported. These incidents range from fighting to bullying. In the Allegheny County School districts, 7.75% of the incidents reported were forms of bullying. The offender demographics for the 11 14 age range were the highest, with a combined 47.65% of the 8,118 incidents in that school year, and 3,246 students involved. Citizens Against Bullying developed a surveys that contained 10 questions apiece. The questions ranged from What do you define as bullying? Physical, Emotion, Both A& B to Have you noticed a change in behavior in your child after returning from school? These questions help CAB determine who would be the target audience in the daylong event, as well as helped determine what topics to discuss during the event. The results showed that 60% of parents have not had their children complain to them about experiencing bullying. On the other hand, 40% of parents have heard their children talk about bullying, whether it was to them personally, or to another student. 40% of parents are not aware of the overall problem of bullying that their children face today, whether it occurs at school, on-line, or via cellular phone. Only a mere 30% of parents from the survey have been informed from the school that their children have been involved in bullying incidents, whether the child was the bully, or the bullied. 75% of the parents have educated their children on the effects that bullying can have on children, and 100% of parents agree that bringing more awareness to children and parents about bullying and the effects it can have is important and needs to happen.

Objectives:

Currently, bullying seems to be on the rise with outlets such as social media, the internet, and cell phones being used on a daily, even hourly, basis. With this rise of bullying, there has been an outpouring of love towards the bullied, but also some drastic endings to bullying situations. Since this has been on

8 the rise, we have decided to make an anti-bullying campaign our main objective. Moon Area School District is the closest school district, as well as one of the largest ones in the area, so we will focus our main efforts on the local students as well as their parents.

Objective: 1.) To increase the awareness of bullying in parents with children ages 11 14 in the Area School District by December of 2014. 2.) To increase the awareness of bullying and its outlets to children ages 11 14 in Moon Area School District by December of 2014. the Moon

Citizens Against Bullying will be conducting a survey with 60 parents of children ages 11 14 in the Moon Area School District. With these results, an event will be hosted to help raise the awareness of anti-bullying in the Moon Area School District, as well as have a website available with information available for anyone to look up. The site will be able to assist any person who would need more in-depth information or needed information to contact us or someone to help them with an anti-bullying situation.

Target Audience: Our target audience for our campaign against bullying will primarily focus on the parents of children ages 11 to 14, and secondarily focus on the children who are bullies. The lack of discipline and education as to why bullying is wrong can directly lead to violent behavior in children in a school environment (Smith, 1988). Children witnessing their parents acting violently or bullying and disrespecting other members of their family can cause the children to mimic the behavior in a school environment (Smith, 1988). Most importantly, according to safe schools, 2012 statistics for Moon Area School District show that contacting parents is the first method done by the school to effectively discipline the bully and prevent such conduct from reoccurring.

9 In Moon Area School District, the most bullying incidents were committed by students ages 11 to 14. The highest frequency was seen by students at age 14, with the second highest being ages 13 and 11 (Safeschools.net, 2012). We must target the parents and students within this age group in order to have the most effect and to prevent the most incidents with our campaign. When looking at other demographics such as race and gender we can see that we do not need to narrow our audience to one specific race or gender. According to Safeschools.net, the two highest races to commit a bullying incident were Caucasian and African American students. The highest amount of incidents occurred because of Caucasian students, with African American students being the second highest to bully. Females were the second highest compared to males; however, only a small difference of twenty-five percent was seen. It is because of the close number of incidents between the two races and genders that both races and genders will be included in our target audience. Children may attend school all day, but it is the parents whom they return home to and spend the majority of their time with. Parents know their children better than anyone else and can educate them on the consequences bullying can entail and help guide and protect them if they fall victims to a bullying situation. The parents of the children will also be easier to interview and gather research from. It would be very difficult to schedule interviews with middle school children and it will be more comfortable, feasible and practical to talk to their parents. It is because of the importance parenting plays in the outcome of a childs behavior and the availability of their input for our research that we have selected them as our primary audience. The best results can be collected from the age group and demographics that contain the most incidents as bullying in middle school is more prevalent (Bhoolsuwan, 2013).

10 Bullying Statistics (Safe Schools.net, 2012).

Enrollment Allegheny County: 145,537 Lawrence County: 12,679 Beaver County: 22,774 State: 1,813,773 Student Simple Assaults Allegheny County: 600 Lawrence County: 19 Beaver County: 17 State: 5,542 Student Aggravated Assaults Allegheny County: 38 Lawrence County: 0 Beaver County: 14 State: 662 Reported Bullying Incidents Allegheny County: 629 Lawrence County: 48 Beaver County: 107 State: 4,886

Moon Area School District 2012 Student Simple Assaults: 0

11 Student Aggravated Assaults: 0 Reported Bullying Incidents: 2 Incidents reported by fellow student: 1 The remainder of statistics relating to bullying and or violent incidents between students for the year of 2012 will only show the highest and second highest rate. Incidents committed by student age 14: 8 Age 13: 2 Age 12: 0 Age 11: 2 Incidents committed by males: 29 Females: 7 Incidents committed by white race: 24 Incidents committed by black race: 7 Incidents committed on school property: 3 Incidents reported to parents: 22 Habitual male offenders: 43 Habitual female offenders: 30 2011 Student Simple Assaults: 0 Student Aggravated Assaults: 0 Reported Bullying Incidents: 2 2010 Student Simple Assaults: 1 Student Aggravated Assaults: 0 Reported Bullying Incidents: 8 2009 Student Simple Assaults: 10

12 Student Aggravated Assaults: 0 Reported Bullying Incidents: 27 2008 Student Simple Assaults: 0 Student Aggravated Assaults: 0 Reported Bullying Incidents: 2

According to these results, we can safely say that our specific primary demographic target audience for Moon Area School District should be the parents of white male students, at the age of 14. We can also safely target the entire age range of 11 to 14 due the high number of incidents. We can also conclude our secondary audience should be white males aged 14. It is also safe to target the entire age range of 11 to 14 due to the high number of incidents.

Central Message / Theme In short, the Central Message or Theme of our campaign is that bullying is wrong. The campaign highlights the idea that bullying is un-cool or that cool kids treat others the way that they themselves would want to be treated. This theme has tested positively overall with the target audience of children in school ages 11 to 14. This theme promotes overall idea of equality among children. The sub-messages of the campaign promote students to speak up when they experience bullying. Students are encouraged to have an open flow of communication with teachers and faculty members in order to decrease instances of bullying. After one experiences our campaign, if a child witnesses someone being bullied, he or she will have an innate response of reporting the issue to a faculty member so that the problem can be properly handled. Strategies:

13 Our goal is to advertise our anti bullying campaign through as many different channels as possible in order to reach maximum effectiveness. We are specifically targeting boys from ages 11-14 who live in Moon Township. We plan to reach the target audience through events, celebrity role models, and an informational website. We plan on having a whole day devoted to kids where they will have fun activities, games, and play sports at school. It will be an anti-bullying day where teachers and students discuss the importance of not bullying one another. However, it will be a fun day that kids look forward to every year. This will be most valuable to our target audience because children will fully appreciate an exciting day of fun at school and simultaneously learn about the importance of bullying awareness. This event will also be a bonding experience for the children and their fellow classmates involved. Another important method to increase the awareness of bullying is to have celebrities promoting our campaign. We will have Sidney Crosby doing commercials to reach out to the kids of Pittsburgh. This will be targeted to boys in the area to make them think bullying is un-cool. We will also use social media to promote our campaign and have celebritys tweet and share things about anti bullying to parents and children. Using a celebrity role model will help achieve our goal of raising bullying awareness since Sidney Crosby is a highly esteemed and influential member of Pittsburgh culture who children can easily relate to. CAB plans on making a website for both parents and children to visit. This will have tips and instructions about just what to do if bullying is a problem. This will allow parents and children to discuss this issue on a personal level. This will be the place a parent can go if they suspect their child is being bullied. The website will be very informative for parents and provide an opportunity to bond with their children and discuss the negative consequences of bullying. We will have a kickoff launch event to start our campaign. We will have guest speakers who will talk about the effects of bullying and what to do if you are a parent of a child who is being bullied or is a

14 bully. We will have food and drinks available. We will be accepting donations to support our cause. We will give parents fact sheets to take home with information about our campaign. This event will help our campaign to directly reach our target audience and also quickly contact a larger amount of people.

Tactics / Action Plan:

In Moon Area School District various events will be held throughout the year to raise awareness of bullying to the children and their parents. The first day-long event will take a look into what can be defined as bullying. With the help of students, MASD and CAB will portray to parents different liveaction role-playing scenarios that could possibly occur during the school day to their children that would be considered bullying. Following that, there will be workshops offered to parents inviting them to discuss whether theyve encountered their child talking about bullying at home, how they recommend dealing with children that are bullying, and various other topics. The children will have further interactive activities with Sidney Crosby present to help show them that bullying is not cool and is not condoned by anyone, especially someone who many children admire so highly.

This event will be promoted through local newspapers, local radio stations, through flyers in the mail, and in e-mails sent to the parents. It is not a mandatory day, it is just recommended for parents to learn about things their children could be facing. Attached is a copy of the invitational flyer to the event.

After the first main event, a two Facebook groups will be introduced, one for the parents, and one for the children. In these pages, children will have access to each other to talk about bullying, or learn about upcoming events that are happening to help promote anti-bullying. For the parents, the page will have discussion boards where parents can pose questions and have other parents respond to them.

Other events that will be held are half day events. These would include occasional visits from Sidney Crosby, to check in on how the children are doing with anti-bullying in their school, as well as to

15 maintain a close relationship with Moon Area School District students. Raffles will be held for that parents and students to end with tickets to win to attend Penguins games and win Penguins gear, if they attend the anti-bullying events. On these half days, the focus will be on building a strong feeling of protection and community within the students. Parents will be encouraged to join, to view to progress, or to volunteer that day.

A website will be developed for Moon Area School District parents and students that is aimed completely at the anti-bullying days. This site will have contacts listed for anyone who has questions, a bullying hot-line where children can talk to someone about bullying, a section for people to pitch ideas for what the next event should include in its discussion, and a list of upcoming and previous events for all to see. There will also be pictures from previous events, peoples comments about the events, and information about bullying for parents and children to be able to access at all times.

16

17

18 Evaluation

The objectives of Citizens Against Bullying are to increase awareness of teen bullying in males aged 11-14 in the Moon Township of Pennsylvania area. We hope that teen bullying incidents will decrease by 25% in Moon Area school districts. We also hope to educate parents and students about what precautions and actions to take in the face of bullying To see if we meet our objectives we will be surveying the students at Moon School district to see if levels of bullying have decreased since our campaign started. Students will be issued these surveys at the end of the school year to see if the campaign has worked. We will also check to see what the statistic and figures on reported bullying incidents next year in the Moon Township School District are. If they numbers are significantly lowered we will know the campaign was successful. To see if parents of Moon School District have raised awareness and seen a decrease in teen bullying we will be giving them a survey. This survey will indicate if their feelings about bullying have changed and their behaviors regarding bullying have changed.

Summary Our campaign team has done numerous amounts of research and planning while evaluating teen bullying in the Moon Township area. If a campaign is implemented in this school area we feel that teen bullying will decrease. If parents and students learn more information about the seriousness of teen bullying we can prevent cases of suicide and overall reports of bullying in the future.

19 By talking directly to the parents of children aged 11-14 we can help them understand the seriousness of this issue. We can also give parents useful and tactful information that they can use in guiding their teens with the issue of bullying. By having a school-issued day once a year to talk about bullying we feel that this will make it un-cool to bully one another. Also, by having TSA commercials by Pittsburgh athletes speak about the harmful effects of bullying this will speak to kids. This campaign has all of the steps to raise awareness and lower incidents of teen bullying for the future.

Schedule / Budget

SCHEDULE December, 2013 1st - 20th Deal negotiations with Sydney Crosby th st 20 - 31 Distribute Sydney Crosby Flyers January, 2014 1st- 15th Set up & market Facebook groups for parents and children February, 2014 1st- 30th Plan MASD events and market with flyer distribution April, 2014 1st (12pm-5pm) MASD Event #1 June, 2014 2nd (12pm-5pm) MASD Event #2 August, 2014 4th (12pm-5pm) MASD Event #3 October, 2014 6th (12pm-5pm) MASD Event #4 November, 2014 1st- 14th Build informative website 15th Launch informative website th th 20 - 27 Distribute Anti-Bully Day flyers 28th Anti-Bully Day December, 2014 1st& 2nd Analyze campaign results

20

Sydney Crosby Contract Social Media Developers Website Editor Flyers MASD Events (x4) Event Staff (x4) TOTAL

BUDGET $20,000 $600 $4,000 $1,500 $8,000 ($2,000) $2,400 ($600) $36,500.00

21 References

Arnold, C. (2007, Nov). Beating bullying is focus of initiative. New Pittsburgh Courier. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/368043461?accountid=28365 Moon Area School District. (n.d.). Moon Area School District. Retrieved November 7, 2013, from http://www.moonarea.net/202/attending Pennsylvania School Safety History. (2013). Retrieved on December 2, 2013 from https://www.safeschools.state.pa.us/Main.aspx?App=6a935f44-7cbf-45e1-850be29b2f1ff17f&Menu=dbd39a1f-3319-4a75-8f69-d1166dba5d70&res=