In October of 2014, thousands of students participated in Seon’s annual coloring contest, first launched in 2013 to promote anti-bullying awareness and education. One special needs student program in Georgia participated in the contest in a way that was truly inspiring. We caught up with Gary Mullis, Director of Services at the Cedarwood Georgia Network for Educational and Therapeutic Support (GNETS) to hear his story.
GNETS mission is to support the local school systems’ continuum of services by providing comprehensive special education services and therapeutic support to students with severe emotional and behavioral disorders and students with Autism. The Cedarwood GNETS program covers nine counties in Southeast Georgia and has three school locations in Baxley, Statesboro, and Lyon. The program strives to improve children’s coping and socialization skills with the end goal of re-entry into the mainstream school system.
Dr. Gary Mullis, Director of Services at Cedarwood GNETS program, organized a week-long anti-bullying education campaign in an effort to get students to identify, report, and stop bullying in the classroom, on the playground and on the bus to school.
“Students in our program desperately want to be treated just like the other kids in the mainstream school environment, but are often singled out because of their behavior and become the victims of bullying, or worse, become bullies themselves,” says Mullis. “The goal of our anti-bullying week was to help students recognize what behaviors are considered bullying and learn how to prevent it.”
Dr. Mullis’ week long anti-bullying awareness campaign started out with all participating students taking an anti-bullying pledge. Other activities included making a handprint to symbolize stopping bullying behaviors and a review of acceptable classroom behaviors, laws against bullying, and expected behaviors at the bus stop, on the bus, and on the playground. Each day there was a main activity and a series of games or skits to demonstrate to the students the impact of bullying and alternative behaviors.
When putting the plan together for the anti-bullying program, Mullis researched resources online and came across Seon’s anti-bullying coloring contest. “We pretty much have a zero dollar budget for anti-bullying education, so we needed to be creative in putting this anti-bullying program together, “ said Mullis. “The week included showing YouTube videos on bullying and of course the Seon’s anti-bullying coloring contest. ”
Forty-five students from the GNETS center submitted entries to Seon and the school held their own internal contest with outside judging of the winning entries according to coloring, completeness, and creativity. Students ranged in age from 7 to 20 years old. Winners were announced for each grade level and then an overall site winner was awarded. Gift bags were presented to the winners and all entries were submitted to Seon for the Anti-bullying coloring contest.
When asked about the success of the week-long program, Mullis related this story: “After watching the YouTube videos, daily bullying activities, discussing bullying behaviors, and participating in the coloring contest, one of our students recognized that he was in fact a bully. He realized that what he was doing was actually hurting people and vowed to put an end to it. This student is popular and looked up to by his peer group so the change in his attitude toward bullying will really have a big impact on the rest.”
Stories like this are exactly why Seon decided to embark on our anti-bullying awareness campaign – to support the efforts of dedicated administrators such as Dr. Gary Mullis. Hearing what helped make an impact in the lives of forty-five special needs students makes our continued efforts worthwhile.
Seon recognized each of the GNETS students who took part in the contest with a certificate of participation, anti-bullying pins and tattoos, and provided each of the three Centres with a Bully Project Educators DVD and Toolkit to help continue their anti-bullying education.
Mullis reported “When we handed out the Seon Official Certificates, pins, and tattoos to our students, you would have thought we were handing out Nobel Peace Awards. All three of our sites will be using the DVD and Toolkit in the spring again in promoting a ‘bully-free’ environment.”
Join Seon anti-bullying movement and get free resources to support the campaign at http://seon.com/anti-bullying
Lori Jetha
Marketing Manager
Seon
