northerncare, because every child is individual.

Throughout October northerncare held a competition to support Anti-Bullying Week which runs from 16th-20th November 2009.

Children and young people were asked to design northerncare an anti-bullying poster which demonstrated in its creativity, words and graphics that across northerncare bullying is not acceptable.

The poster could be hand drawn or designed via use of IT equipment and it was to be no larger than A4 in size. The prize was £50 to spend in the home or school and the poster would then be circulated across all our homes and schools and placed in our Head Office. All entrants would receive a certificate of participation.

We randomly selected staff from northerncare’s Head Office to be the judges. They had a difficult decision to make as we had lots of posters submitted and the standard was excellent, but there could only be one winner chosen and that was:

The Birches Children’s Home

To support the ethos of the posters, staff at The Birches held an anti-bullying session with the young people with the aim of trying to ensure that the young people gained a better understanding of the effects of bullying and why they should not bully or behave in a discriminatory manner towards others.

The group participated well and discussion brought to light incidents which they had been involved in at different times throughout their lives.

The main point stressed to, and by, the group was that bullying does not have to be a physical assault on another person and is often portrayed in other ways by the assailant. For example, name calling, humiliation, being nasty, not including them in things, goading and taunting etc.

Staff members then provided accounts of life experiences and situations they too had been involved in and this was actively discussed with the group. One staff member produced badges which had been ordered from a national anti-bullying campaign group and the young people in the group and the staff wore their badges with pride.

The session concluded with all young people agreeing that any form of bullying was unacceptable and wrong and promising to treat each other with more respect and look out for one another at all times.

The message from northerncare and The Birches is:

Time to stop bullying NOW

You can view the poster by clicking on the link below.

The Birches' Winning Poster