On Friday Oct 25th 2019, parents and families from across the UK, that had lost children to suicide or had children seriously harmed, as a consequence of failures to address bullying and violence complaints in schools, launched a Safer schools campaign at Leeds Town Hall.
Having invited 20 Ministers and MP’s attend to hear from some of the grieving families and to learn how further deaths could be prevented in schools, as a group we were extremely upset and disillusioned that out of 20 Ministers and MP’s not one of those chose to attend.
Our Online Campaign group now includes over 100 families, 15 of those having tragically lost children. In the absence of Ministers and MP’s, the group represented by some of the families, presented a clear common sense solution to prevent this happening to any other children and families in the future. The presentation can be seen by watching the video linked below.
The story no one is telling. Why Parliament is ignoring bullying and suicide in schools.
We’ve now asked every MP across the UK to let us know when they would be available to meet families and representatives of the group and in the meantime, to agree to the following pledge:
If Elected, I pledge to work closely with the Safer Schools campaign and to support laws and policies that protect our children from bullying and violence in schools that ensure;
#1 Schools must all follow a National Code of Conduct/Practice for dealing with bullying and violence complaints.
#2 Schools must follow their written Bullying Policies by law
#3 Schools must record all incidents of Bullying and violence brought to their attention.
#4 All decisions in relation to Bullying and violence complaints must be appealable to at least one other independent body above the school and Governors.
#5 Details of outcomes of any bullying and violence complaints must be made available to the complainant from schools, Local Authorities, School Inspection bodies and Government Education departments.
This will be at least the 5th letter and opportunity many MP’s have been given to prevent families from losing children to suicide. We hope that this time they will act and make this commitment to ensure, that no family in this country ever has to face the loss of a child or have their child harmed, as a result of a failure to take this issue seriously again.