Together against bullying
The City of Espoo has many means of preventing, intervening in and following up on bullying. We always work closely with children and young people and their guardians. We also have several partners to support our anti-bullying work. In addition to this, each daycare centre and school has its own measures for raising community spirit and helping children make friends.
Each daycare centre and school has its own measures for preventing and intervening in bullying.
Preventing bullying and harassment is extremely important. All children and young people are taught and instructed to work in a group throughout their school life, from early childhood education to basic education and upper secondary education.
Both daycare centres and schools have group activities, and youth workers tour the schools at the beginning of each autumn term.
Is everything OK? A young person needs a community to belong to and reliable adults in their life. Deputy Mayor for Growth and Learning Harri Rinta-aho shares how cooperation with pupil and student welfare services works in Espoo. The article also includes young people’s views and experiences.
If you notice bullying:
- Be a good friend: if you notice bullying, show support for the victim, for example by taking a lonely person into your group.
- If someone is bullying you at school, let a teacher, the school principal or another adult at the school know. This way, they can intervene in the situation.
- Please also tell an adult if someone else is being bullied.
- Tell them what happened in the situation and who was there.
- Also tell an adult if you have encountered bullying online. Keep any evidence, such as social media posts, text messages or emails.
- Please also tell your parents or a reliable adult at school, for example.
- If you need help, you can contact the teacher or school principal, or the
school welfare officer or psychologist. The discussions are confidential, and your wishes
and opinions will be taken into consideration.
Source: Finnish National Agency for Education
If you suspect your child is being bullied:
- Pay attention to any changes in your child’s emotions or behaviour.
- Inform the school (your child’s teacher or the school principal) immediately if you notice or hear about your child or other children being bullied.
- You can also report bullying that has taken place outside school hours if you believe it affects the child’s schoolwork. You can also discuss the events with the guardians of the other children involved.
- Even though you must be worried about your child, please try to think about how to handle the matter constructively from the other children’s perspective, too.
- If your child has been bullied, support them. Encourage the child to talk about their experiences if the topic is discussed at school, for example.
- If your child has participated in bullying, support them in processing the topic with the teachers and the other children involved in the situation.
Source: Finnish National Agency for Education
You can find Espoo daycare centres and schools via the links below:
Finnish-language comprehensive schools
Pupils and students in Espoo receive support in cases of cyberbullying and online harassment via the SomeBuddy service.
Social media, various gaming platforms and messaging apps used by schoolchildren and students may sometimes cause trouble in their life. This is why the SomeBuddy service provides low-threshold help for difficult situations online.
The service aims to support both children and young people attending Finnish-language comprehensive schools and their guardians. It also supports the teaching staff’s handling of cyberbullying among the pupils.
SomeBuddy offers assistance via a web application which requires the user to have a school-specific code (the school provides the code). The pupil will log into the service and describe their situation based on questions presented in the application. After this, the SomeBuddy experts will diagnose the situation and respond to the user via the application. The response includes an assessment of the situation and guidelines to resolve it.
You can ask us for help with any trouble on social media:
- bullying
- stalking
- spreading rumours
- sexual harassment
- spreading nude photos
- fake profiles
- hate speech
Login: Someturva.(external link, opens in a new window) You will get the activation code from your own teacher / school.
Read more about the SomeBuddy service (external link)(external link, opens in a new window).
News article on espoo.fi: Espoo schoolchildren given access to service to avoid online bullying and harassment(external link, opens in a new window)
‘Building a Strong Community Together – No to Bullying’ is the anti-bullying plan from early childhood education to upper secondary education. The plan aims to promote the wellbeing of pupils and students and reinforce community spirit in schools and educational institutions.
Early childhood education and schools work with long-term goals to ensure the wellbeing of each child, young person and adult and that no one gets bullied. The anti-bullying plan of the Growth and Learning Sector was updated in autumn 2020. Early childhood education units and schools are responsible for carrying out the plan in their unit.
Most cases of bullying can be handled through cooperation between the school and families, without outside parties. However, when a conflict is serious and prolonged, the school and guardians may run out of solutions and energy. In these cases, it may be beneficial to invite in an external and neutral professional in conflict resolution. The City of Espoo is using the B-Stop programme of the Children of the Station organisation.
The B-Stop programme helps intervene in prolonged and challenging cases of bullying at school. The B-Stop work to intervene in bullying is carried out with an extensive network of professionals, in addition to the pupils and students and their guardians.
The work may involve the school staff and social services, police, child welfare services and anyone involved in the child’s or young person’s life. The goal is to find the root causes of the conflict through discussions with the parties both individually and in shared meetings.
The service is intended for lower secondary schools, in particular. The school principal or pupil welfare staff will request the B-Stop services when necessary. If a pupil or guardian request that the service be used, they should agree on the matter with the young person’s school.
Hearing all parties
Serious cases of bullying often have many sides: they may constitute several criminal offences, the roles of the perpetrators and victims may be unclear, and the conflicts may extend to leisure and social media as well. Often, the situation has escalated so that cooperation between the families and the school may be difficult. Hearing all parties, remaining neutral and supporting families are essential for resolving the situation and achieving lasting results.
The B-Stop programme does not aim to replace the existing operating models. Instead, it strengthens these models and brings more expertise from services such as youth services and family work to the schools. The work involves offering consultation, organising shared meetings and mediation, directing the parties to the required services, and monitoring the situation even after it has calmed down.
Read more on the website of Children of the Station(external link, opens in a new window).
Young people’s perspectives on bullying and preventing it. In the Safe Espoo podcast series, young people share their personal experiences of both being bullied and bullying others and how they found help.
Pupils and students have listened to the podcast episodes in lower and upper secondary schools and discussed the topics with their teachers.
Listen to the podcast here.
In the episode ‘The story of a victim’(external link, opens in a new window), we meet Pauliina who shares her story of being psychologically bullied from third to sixth grade in primary school. Only when attending therapy as an adult, Pauliina properly realised that the way others treated her at school was bullying.
In the episode ‘The story of a bully’(external link, opens in a new window) we meet Carolina who was bullied as a child and left with deep emotional scars. Later, Carolina realised she had become a bully because she thought it would make her look confident and cool in others’ eyes. Carolina shares how she started to change her negative behaviour models and learn to treat others with respect.
In the episode ‘Discussion with experts(external link, opens in a new window) we meet senior constable Jenni Romanoff and welfare officer Annika Wiik from Ruusutorppa School.
A working group for Espoo’s Growth and Learning Sector has created a short animated video to help schools prevent and intervene in bullying, harassment, discrimination and violence.
The video incorporates ideas collected from Espoo’s pupils and students on how to make schools safe and pleasant for everyone. The video was funded by the ‘Ohjauksella onnistumisiin’ project supported by the Finnish National Agency for Education.
You can find the videos on Youtube:
in Finnish: Mutteri ja Vatupassi tulevat!(external link, opens in a new window) - YouTube
in Swedish: Mutter och Vattenpass kommer!(external link, opens in a new window) - YouTube
in English: The Bolt and the Level(external link, opens in a new window) - YouTube