Keynote Descriptions
*Please note, the following keynote addresses and workshops are currently scheduled and subject to change.*

Creating Emotionally Safe Schools
Jane Bluestein, Ph.D.

Emotional safety is critical to learning and achievement, and a key component of an atmosphere that discourages passivity, aggression or acting out for revenge or self-protection. This keynote will examine the effect of threat and stress on the brain, and its impact on learning and student behavior. This address will look at the kinds of behaviors kids (and adults) often use to create safety and how these behaviors sometimes interfere with learning and achievement. This presentation will offer practical and effective strategies for building a positive school culture and maximizing achievement, commitment, cooperation and positive social interactions. Topics include discipline and power issues, encouragement and positivity, improving the social culture and dealing with mistakes and misbehavior.


Schools Where Everyone Belongs
Stan Davis

What are the key elements needed to build school environments in which every student feels accepted and comfortable? This presentation brings together research and four decades of professional experience to focus on the individual and school-wide actions we can take to create school environments where all students feel welcome to participate. Building staff-student connections, increasing fairness and consistency in discipline, using positive feedback effectively, building expectations for supportive collegial behaviors, and empowering youth to create positive peer culture will be among the actions addressed.

Relational Aggression: Health Risks and Protective Factors . . . Where do we go from here?
Charisse Nixon, Ph.D

Relational aggression (RA) has an affect on the mental and physical health of our youth.  Research has demonstrated that RA is pervasive in our schools and is linked with adjustment and health issues that affect both males and females at various developmental stages. This keynote will discuss the development of specific protective factors/assets as a strategy to promote children’s ability to stand up in the face of relationally aggressive behaviors. Empathy, forgiveness, and connectedness will be explored as protective factors that may increase resiliency to the effects of RA.  The concept of mentoring will be highlighted as a potential strategy to deliver and instill these needed protective factors.

Workshop Descriptions

A Culture of "Overconnecteds": Cyberbullying and the New Frontier of Aggression
Erika Dauber

This workshop will provide the language, tools and knowledge needed to navigate the online social environment of teens, as well as explore the generational, developmental and cultural factors that contribute to the online phenomenon of cyberbullying. Participants will go where many adults have never gone before -- behind the scenes of social networking, instant messaging and online video sharing -- so you can explore how rumors, gossip, insults, threats and humiliating images spread through communication technologies.

A Physican's View of Relational Aggression: Fostering an Alliance Against Bullying
Dr. Mini Wallace

This workshop is designed to give parents, educators and community members insights about bullying from a physican's perspective. Attendees will go through a physican's thought process on the management of bullying and highlight subtle physical and emotional signs that should be reported to the physican right away. This workshop will discuss tips on how to improve communication between parents and physicans and ways to engage the medical community in discussions about bullying.

"Are You My Friend?": Social/Emotional Development in Elementary School
Marilyn Goldhammer

Learning to make and sustain healthy relationships is an important task for elementary school children. All forms of peer aggression, especially relational aggression, work against the development of supportive friendships and make it difficult to create safe social climates.This workshop will explore how children learn to make friends, develop self confidence, function within a peer group and develop empathy, respect and a sense of community. It is designed for anyone who works with children in grades K-5 in a school or
community-based program.

Building Blocks for Schools Where Everyone Belongs
Stan Davis

How do we begin building “schools where everyone belongs”? Using research and practical techniques, this workshop will share ways to start building the essential elements. What does a fair discipline system look like? How do we strengthen connections between staff and students? How do we develop positive bystander behaviors? These questions and more will be addressed to help participants empower students to create a positive peer culture.

Building Resiliency through Developmental Assets
Gail Brown and Jayne Anderson

Research indicates that approaching primary prevention through resiliency may provide an answer for struggling youth workers. Resiliency programming focuses on strengthening youth development tasks, including social competency, problem-solving skills and a sense of autonomy. This programmatic framework is the trend currently -- to implement programs that foster youth development, rather than programs that aim at intervening against negative youth behaviors. The resiliency framework targets both potential victims and perpetrators by strengthening protective factors and decreasing the likelihood that perpetration and victimization will be realized by participants.

CASS: Creating a Safe School™: The Ophelia Project School Program
Mary A. Baird, Christine Linkie and Chivon H. Fitch

This workshop will present an overview of the CASS: Creating a Safe School™ program elements: school assessments with both qualitative and quantitative data collection, individualized school consulting, teacher trainings, parent involvement, curricula and the student-to-student mentor program. Participants will gain an overall understanding of CASS -- The Ophelia Project's program to create long-term, positive, systemic change in school cultures. Elements of CASS currently exist in schools across the United States. Evaluation results, including over 3,000 students, indicate that the CASS program impacts students' beliefs about relational aggression, as well as their behaviors.

Conflict in the Classroom: Attacking Problems, Not People!
Jane Bluestein, Ph.D.

Do you ever find yourself in the middle of squabbles between your students? Do peers try to draw you into their conflicts? Are aggressive parents or uncooperative colleagues a presence in your life? If so, the energy devoted to these conflicts is having an affect on your teaching, morale and mental health. This workshop explores effective, practical ways to prevent and resolve conflicts with others in your professional life. Participants will explore strategies for dealing with conficts with students, parents and peers, plus techniques for helping others to solve problems and take care of themselves in peaceful and mutually-respectful ways. Topics include boundaries and problem ownership, expectations and assumptions, interpersonal dynamics and patterns that affect the school climate, building a positive social culture, building emotional intelligence, problems with I-messages and techniques for creating win-win solutions.

Cyberbullying Prevention and Response
Sameer Hinduja, Ph.D. and Justin Patchin, Ph.D.

This timely workshop is designed for school administrators, counselors, social workers, psychologists and other youth-serving adults. It offers practical strategies to prevent and respond to Internet-based relational aggression among adolescents.

DOJ Spirit Program
Michele Gwinn Nutter

The US Department of Justice, Community Relations Service, developed the SPIRIT program in the mid-1980s. SPIRIT stands for: Student Problem Identification and Resolution of Issues Together. It was designed for use in middle and high school students to address areas of conflict/tension. Students are asked to name existing problems in the school and to brainstorm for solutions to those problems. Participants will be given the opportunity to experience SPIRIT through role-play.

Expect the Best! Creating a Pro-Social Classroom
Katie Allison

What are the characteristics of a pro-social environment? What skills do teachers need to create a classroom that supports learning by directly addressing relational aggression and bullying behaviors? This workshop will focus on classroom management, accountability, grouping students and working toward school-wide plans that affect systemic change.

How Diverse is Your Universe?
Jane Finkenbine

Schools with diverse student populations face unique challenges when developing programs and policies to address bullying. The workshop will explore the following questions: How do we deal with peer aggression when it crosses racial, socio-economic or cultural boundaries? What is the connection between bullying and prejudice? Mix It Up Dialogues and Diversity Study Circles are great tools to get students talking about their differences and move them from tolerance to acceptance. Attendees will participate in a group Study Circle, and then learn strategies to help your students facilitate their own groups.

Easing the Teasing
Judy Freedman

Teasing is a universal problem, and it cannot be completely prevented. Although children are unable to control the words and actions of the teaser, they can control their reactions to the tease. Educators and school mental health professionals can be extremely instrumental in helping elementary and junior high school-aged children deal with name-calling, ridicule and verbal bullying. This workshop will empower participants with tools, tips and practical advice to empower kids. Types of teasing vs. bullying, reactions to and prolonged effects of teasing, why children tease, the 10 "EASING" strategies, a plan of action for the teaser and the importance of activating bystanders will be addressed. Practical suggestions to implement in the classrooms and school wide will also be discussed.

Is This a School You Would Want to Attend?
Dan Sackheim

How does resiliency theory fit into daily school practice? Attendees will discuss the areas of: academic content and instructional methods -- especially for "non-cookie cutter" kids, school rules, social and emotional development, career-technical education, transfer of students into and from educational options (alternative) schools, expulsion and other disciplinary policies, accountability, working with parents and the community and cost-benefit analysis. The workshop includes very practical examples and handouts. Participants will leave with some clear next steps to take -- no matter what role you hold in supporting education -- as well as ideas and inspiration to shape your thinking in the future.

Legal Issues in Cyberbullying
Sameer Hinduja, Ph.D. and Justin Patchin, Ph.D.

School administrators remain unsure as to when on-campus and off-campus Internet-based relational aggression among students merits their intervention. This workshop covers legal issues and court cases to inform educators toward this end.

Let's Start at the Beginning! Nuts and Bolts of Relational Aggression
Mary A. Baird

This workshop is for participants who are new to the language, roles and consequences of relational aggression. If you have not attended a workshop about relational aggression and bullying before, please join us for this one. You will be provided with the background information needed to participate in all conference workshops, and to start conversations about this important topic with colleagues, friends and family members.

Making a Difference for Students with Differences: Bullying and Disability
Christine Linkie

Are children and adolescents with disabilities at a higher risk than their peers of being involved in relational, physical, and verbal aggression? Using research and literature, this workshop will explore the experiences of students with special needs; disabilities to be discussed include Asperger’s Syndrome, autism, ADHD, LD, and cognitive/physical disabilities. Participants will gain an understanding of the recent research about bullying and disability, deepen their awareness of the social experiences of students with special needs, learn about resources to support families and educators and explore ways to create socially safe school environments that encourage acceptance of differences.

Navigating the Turbulent Waters of Adolescence: What is Our Role?
Charisse Nixon, Ph.D.

This workshop challenges participants to examine their own beliefs and knowledge related to adolescent development, particularly for females. Is adolescence a time for thriving or surviving? Where are adolescents developmentally? Are emotional outbursts normal? Is it always about them? This workshop will explore what growing adolescents need during this time to establish a positive identity and healthy relationships.

RA and TV: Is Disney Dangerous for Our Girls?
Laura Hammel

Where are girls learning relationally aggressive behaviors? It might be as close as your own living room. Learn how relational aggression can be detected in popular television shows and how girls can be helped to recognize and interpret the behavior and its consequences. Participants will learn how to turn these media moments into teaching opportunities.

Relational Aggression: Is It Just A "Girl Thing"?
Nancy Mullin

The media and popular press lead us to believe that relational aggression among girls is on the rise, and that certain behaviors, such as relational aggression are unique to girls. In order to understand relational aggression, and what to do about it, we need to understand the role that gender and cultural biases play. This session will provide an overview of research-based facts and practical strategies for dealing with relational aggression.

Team LEAD: Making a Difference in an Indifferent World
Denise Koebcke

It is time to empower children and promote character, leadership, empathy, compassion and accountability. This dynamic, multi-media presentation will take a look at social issues and challenges faced by kids and families today and how kids themselves can be empowered, through bystander leadership programs, to change the negative social climate in schools and communities to one much more positive and healthy.

Thinking Maps®: Visual Tools for Developing Empathy
Joy Wenke

What is your frame of reference for relational aggression? Participants will explore how to build inclusion and empathy in an elementary inner-city school using Thinking Maps®. Attendees will also develop steps for creating a safe social and emotional climate for students and adults in a K-6 community including a mentor program and girls group.

Using Children's Literature to Foster Empathy and Perspective
Trudy Ludwig

Children's literature offers wonderful teachable moments that allow readers --from preschoolers to young adults -- to emotionally connect with tough issues like bullying and gain insight into others' thoughts, feelings and behaviors in a safe social climate. Participants will learn more about bibliotherapy -- the process, benefits and techniques -- and how it can be used by educators, parents and counseling professionals to empower young minds with critical thinking skills to address bullying and foster empathy and perspective-taking.