November 2014 - Parks & Recreation - 25

Member to Member
Teaching Tolerance

Oakland Parks and Recreation's zero-tolerance anti-bullying policy takes a proactive
approach to teaching youth and teens respect for one another
By Michelle Doppelt

s recreational professionals, we are not strangers to the antics of children and youth, yet over time the level and variety of abuse in our
recreational programs has escalated beyond the standard playground
fights over a ball. Today's children and youth see a plethora of adults modeling
unacceptable behaviors in media, the news and in person. What used to be
an individual's internal thoughts are now blasted over social media platforms,
often accompanied by disturbing language and attitudes, under a veil of anonymity. The City of Oakland and Oakland Parks and Recreation (OPR) pushed
forward to create and implement a zero-tolerance anti-bullying policy as of
2010. This includes bullying behaviors as well as abusive or hateful language
and actions in our programs and facilities.
The bullying situations that children
experience in nearby schools often spill
out into after-school recreation programs. Instituting a mutually beneficial
policy between agencies is key to training young minds to be open and understanding, and knowing the impact of
their words and actions. Training family members in the " it takes a village "
mentality often proves to be more of a
challenge, but teaching adults how to
deal with bullying behaviors in youth
and teens is well worth the effort.
The Oakland Unified School District
(OUSD) has a strong anti-bullying
policy, and OPR has adopted and mirrored much of its expectations.
The OPR policy is a contract shared
with parents and families so everyone involved understands the program's expectations. It is read with
and signed by the child and his or her
guardians, and is then kept on file for
the year. We refer back to the contract
when issues arise so we can remind
the child of the rules to which he or
she agreed. The contract lists expectations and the consequences of falling

short of those guidelines should they
be needed. Each OPR site creates its
contract to fit a specific program's
needs using basic departmental expectations. Centers with gyms often
face a different set of bullying issues
than sites that have public swimming
pools or preschool programs.

OPR aims to use conflict-resolution techniques to teach tolerance
when a negative incident has occurred. We conduct large group
activities early in the program to
inform all participants of the rules.
Younger children are asked to help
write the rules so they can discuss
in a group setting why some words
hurt and need to be avoided. As the
younger children grow, we hope that
much of what we teach, preach and
outreach sticks with them through
their development. Since implementing the anti-bullying policy, we are
seeing many bad situations turn into
opportunities for forgiveness and
training. In 2013, a teen riding on
a city bus was lit on fire by another
student who found his skirt disturb-

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