Anti-Bullying Alliance

About 

Anti-Bullying Alliance are a unique coalition of organisations and individuals, working together to achieve a vision to stop bullying and create safer environments in which children and young people can live, grow, play and learn. The ABA welcome membership from any organisation or individual that supports this vision and provide a free network of thousands of schools and colleges.

• Supporting learning and sharing best practice through membership;

• Raising awareness of bullying through Anti-Bullying Week and other coordinated, shared campaigns;

• Delivering programme work at a national and local level to help stop bullying and bring lasting change to children's lives.

ABA provide expertise in relation to all forms of bullying between children and young people. The alliance was established by the NSPCC and the National Children's Bureau in 2002 and is hosted by the National Children's Bureau.

Objectives

• To raise the profile of bullying and the effect it has on the lives of children and young people;

• To create a climate in which everyone agrees that bullying is unacceptable;

• To make sure that teachers, youth practitioners, parents, carers, children and young people have the skills and knowledge to address bullying effectively.

Values

To make sure stakeholders are united against bullying, the ABA have set values that all members sign up to. The alliance:

• Believes bullying in any form is wrong and should not be tolerated, and that any environment that encourages bullying, or shows indifference to prejudice and discrimination is unacceptable;

• Believes bullying is a behaviour choice and that anyone can be encouraged to change their behaviour;

• Believes all children and young people have intrinsic value and worth and embrace their uniqueness and autonomy;

• Respects difference and welcome diversity in children, young people and in society in general, and believe ABA work should be inclusive of all;

• Believes children and young people should have the right to feel safe, secure and valued, and that creating a safe environment and dealing with bullying is a shared responsibility;

• Believes children and young people should actively participate in decisions that affect them and should be supported in taking responsibility for their choices and subsequent actions;

• Supports a range of positive strategies to deal with bullying and actively challenge the use of humiliation, fear,  ridicule and other similar approaches in an effort to reduce bullying;

• Works within the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (Articles 14 and 28); 

• Believes that people should be treated with respect and courtesy.

The ABA work to achieve their objectives in three key ways:

• Policy and advocacy work - partnership building, policy development and media work;

• Building the evidence base for effective practice- encouraging research and evaluation to identify what works, collecting and sharing effective practice, supporting new developments and innovations in line with the evidence;

• Information sharing - disseminating and sharing information through our membership and developing resources for schools and other organisations that work with children and young people.