OU'S PRSSA Works to Combat Bullying

Ohio University’s chapter of Public Relations Student Society of America recently began a comprehensive awareness campaign to combat the critical social issue of bullying.The OU chapter of PRSSA is participating in the Bateman Case Study competition, a national project with approximately 70 participating universities. The focus of the 2013 campaign is bullying, an issue that PRSSA said needs more awareness.Junior PRSSA member Nicole Spears heads OU’s project, the Reach Out for Friendship campaign. February is the implementation phase of the group’s project, which, in this case, includes outreach events and projects for local schools. By the end of March, the team will need to send in a completed brief on their project.“We did a lot of research beforehand, so we’ll be comparing our results to that research and tracking all of our impressions… every single person we’ve contacted with our message,” said Spears.“Sometimes it’s hard for us to communicate to the community, not just campus, so we’re taking that into consideration by trying to move some of our events off campus,” said Spears.Part of Spears’ focus of the campaign is to change the tone of conversation regarding bullying.“The thing that we’re doing to differentiate our campaign, given our limitations, is change the focus from the negative impacts of bullying to how you can prevent it as a bystander or even victim trying to help a friend … by not taking part in gossip at school, befriending the new kid at school,” said Spears.Outreach coordinator Marissa Dockum has been in contact with many local school officials to help spread the word about the program. The campaign will release a video tomorrow, detailing the mission of the campaign.One effort that the team has made in reaching out to schools is Reach-out Resource Kits. This kit, designed to be distributed to schools or individual teachers, contains fact-sheets, lesson plans for teaching anti-bullying habits and presentation files for classrooms. The group is also looking into setting up a mentorship program in local schools.Each team is required to take meticulous care to record the impressions they receive from participants, as well as completing a 10-page project brief for review by PRSSA judges. The top three projects will receive cash prizes and are honored at PRSSA’s national conference.OU has officially endorsed the Reach Out for Friendship project. It began simply as a matter of competition and has become more for the members of the organization.“From what we’re seeing so far, we are shocked by the impact that we’re having. Maybe we didn’t come into it [the project] with as much of the philanthropic feeling that we are feeling now,” said Spears.The process has been educational for the group, which is trying to lay the groundwork for future campaigns of this nature.“Now that we’re seeing people engage with our campaign, it’s cool to see the effects that it really is having… everyone wants to prevent bullying,” said Spears. “We have teachers emailing us and tweeting at us almost daily now asking how they can get involved, and that’s been really awesome.”One of the last big events that the students will be coordinating will be Friendship Day, held on Feb. 23 at the Athens Community Center. All the community members, sponsors and those interested in the campaign are invited to participate in further educational activities to help foster anti-bullying attitudes.