The Latest Facet of Tutor and Mentor Training: Helping Children Confront Cyberbullying

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Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB) July 15, 2008 -- When community-based organizations, universities and school districts begin training thousands of new volunteer tutors and mentors this fall, those organizations will need to add one more topic to their agendas: an understanding of cyber gossip and cyberbullying.

According to the National Crime Prevention Council in Arlington, Virginia, more than four in 10 U.S. teens are victims of cyberbullying, yet only one in 10 victims informs their parents of what's happening. This, however, doesn't mean that they're not telling anybody else.

"Since we launched our organization in 2003, we've found that time and again, children share concerns with their volunteer tutors and mentors that they do not tell anybody else," said Gary Kosman, Founder and CEO, America Learns. "It's essential that volunteer-driven tutoring and mentoring programs equip their volunteers with the resources they need to respond appropriately when students come to them with news that they're being harassed online or via cell phone messaging."

America Learns, in partnership with teen and Net-Generation expert Vanessa Van Petten, have produced a free toolkit that volunteer tutors and mentors can use to assess, address, and if necessary, report cyber harassment incidents to children's parents, school administrators, and website administrators. The resource is now available for free at http://www.americalearns.net/cyberbullying.

The toolkit not only offers tutors and mentors specific steps they can take, but also arms them with guidance they can provide to school administrators, parents and guardians. For example, the resource provides parents with a form letter that they can send to administrators of websites and Internet services such as facebook.com, MySpace.com and secondlife.com, and of services such as Google Talk and AIM. The letter helps parents to formally document the specific incident and request actions that the Internet company take to address the issue immediately.

"We know that most volunteer tutors and mentors don't have a lot of time outside of their already busy lives to read tomes of research on this issue," said Van Petten, "so we put together a succinct toolkit that volunteers not only use to take stock of and address the situation to the extent that their roles with children allow, but to also quickly and easily educate and engage school administrators and parents so that the issue can be put to rest as soon as possible."

About America Learns, LLC:

Los Angeles-based America Learns is a global educational performance and accountability firm reaching more than 20,000 students worldwide. The company's flagship service, the America Learns Performance Measurement & Learning Network, helps organizations to simultaneously collect their educators and mentors' best practices from the field, share those strategies with educators and mentors when it's timely and meaningful to do so, and measure educators and mentors' performance. Organizations using the company's services include universities (e.g., Dwight Hall at Yale, Duke University, UC Berkeley, Georgetown, and the University of Michigan), national, international and community-based nonprofits (e.g., Learning Enterprises and Jewish Family Services in Detroit, MI), after-school programs, and school districts (e.g., the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools and the Minneapolis Public Schools). The company also creates and publishes high quality, meaningful, stress-free learning resources for children that are steeped in relevant research and practice. Learn more at www.americalearns.net or by calling 310-689-0542.

About Vanessa Van Petten

Vanessa Van Petten writes books, articles and hosts a world-renowned parenting blog to improve parent-teen relationships by providing them with new perspectives, stories and neutral places to communicate. On her daily blog, Van Petten posts articles, videos, screencasts and hosts live chats to offer parents a window into the daily lives of their teen and tween kids. She shows parents and offers tips from actual teens on how to talk with their screen-obsessed Net generation children about everything, from safely using Facebook to smoking pot to high school dances to oral sex. Learn more at www.OnTeensToday.com or by calling 310-702-8886.

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