Newswise — In a 2011 nationwide survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 20 percent of high school students reported being bullied while at school, and an estimated 16 percent reported being bullied electronically.
Often, victims of bullying feel alone and are afraid that by asking for help they will be perceived as weak. Having someone trustworthy to talk to gives victims much needed support and helps them to recognize options for dealing with difficult situations that they may not have thought of on their own.
Educating and providing support for victims of bullying is one of the goals of Teen Peers Educating Peers (Teen PEP), an outreach program at ProMedica Toledo Children’s Hospital. Teen PEP is a youth-led violence and abuse prevention education program which operates in 12 Northwest Ohio area schools. The program utilizes trained teen leaders in each of the participating schools to deal with such topics as teen relationship violence, bullying, rape, sexual abuse, physical and emotional abuse, as well as stereotyping and neglect. The program began in 1993.
Danielle Cisterino, project director for Teen PEP, started as a Teen PEP teen leader in the mid 1990’s. Since then she has appeared on several local talk forums and radio shows as an expert panelist on such topics as teen dating violence prevention and bullying. She has also trained countless professional educators on how to detect warning signs of abusive teen relationships and how to prevent bullying in their schools.
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