Barbados needs a national bullying prevention strategy and stronger rehabilitation programmes for young people, two specialists have said, amid parents’ frustration with how schools handle incidents.
Shawn Clarke, chief executive officer of Supreme Counselling for Personal Development, and Professor Dwayne Devonish, a lecturer and behavioural scientist at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, said tackling the problem required greater collaboration among schools, parents and other stakeholders.
Their comments came amid a series of viral videos of students engaging in physical altercations and making disparaging remarks about schoolmates.
Clarke said he had been hearing complaints from parents and children for several years that established procedures were not producing satisfactory results.
Shawn Clarke (File Photo)
“I have been hearing for a number of years now, not just recent, from both parents and children that they have been following the procedures and or the process and not getting the desired result,” he told Barbados TODAY.
He explained that while a school might consider a two-week suspension an appropriate punishment for bullying, parents could feel the consequence was insufficient.
“There are some parents that are saying that the school has done nothing at all,” he said.
Clarke encouraged parents dissatisfied with a school’s response to escalate their concerns to the Ministry of Education, adding that existing laws could also provide recourse.
Although no legislation specifically addresses bullying, he noted that certain behaviours could fall under existing offences.
“Physical bullying is assault. That’s on the law books. Spreading rumours, in terms of defamation of character, that is on the law books,” he said.
Over the weekend, Parkinson Memorial School announced it had initiated disciplinary and administrative procedures after a video circulated showing students in uniform making comments about schoolmates and the school.
Last week, police charged Melissa Onita Griffith, 43, of Mason Hall Street, St Michael, with assault occasioning actual bodily harm in connection with an incident involving a female juvenile at Queen’s Park on November 3. The incident was captured on video and went viral. Griffith publicly alleged that it was triggered by a bullying-related matter involving another student from the same school.
Another video circulated over the weekend showing a student slapping a schoolmate across the head in a classroom.
Clarke said he did not necessarily believe bullying had worsened, but social media had made incidents more visible. However, he suggested some students might feel emboldened by the belief that the consequences for their actions were not serious enough.
“What Barbados needs is a national bullying prevention initiative that addresses or speaks to all the schools, and speaks to the entire student population in Barbados,” he said, calling for consistent protocols that principals and school staff could follow.
Devonish said schools also needed to move beyond responding to incidents after they occurred and introduce sustained programmes teaching emotional regulation, empathy, conflict resolution and responsible digital behaviour.
Professor Dwayne Devonish (File Photo)
He stressed that parents had an equally important role, particularly in engaging children about their online and offline activities.
“These are children coming from families and homes,” he said, adding that parents needed to have meaningful conversations about respect, bullying and accountability.
Devonish also called for greater investment in rehabilitation programmes for young people, highlighting the Police Service’s Juvenile Liaison Scheme, which he said had been doing valuable work with at-risk youth.
He argued that participation and enforcement needed strengthening, including through greater use of rehabilitation programmes as part of court-imposed requirements for young offenders.
The scheme, he noted, remained largely voluntary, allowing participants to withdraw with little or no intervention.
“It doesn’t have the teeth or the enforcement powers,” he said.
Devonish added that Barbados needed more programmes to address youth behavioural challenges, while existing initiatives required better resources and regular evaluation to determine their effectiveness.
(SB)
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