Call It When You See It: Major League Soccer Organization and Pediatric Hospital Team Up for Anti-Bullying Program

Abstract

Bullying remains a widespread social issue in the United States (US). Those who bully, are bullied, or witness bullying may experience negative emotional and physical consequences.¹ To address the gap in accessible youth bullying interventions, Children’s Mercy Kansas City partnered with Sporting Kansas City to develop Red Card KC, a bullying awareness program focusing on the impact of bystanders in bullying situations. The program is delivered to school and community partners through interactive assemblies educating youth on recognizing bullying, managing bullying situations, and standing up against bullying. Red Card KC has also partnered with schools to recognize and celebrate students who show kindness within their schools and communities. By targeting bystanders in bullying situations, the Red Card KC program empowers youth to come together in the fight against bullying.

Bullying

Bullying is a term that is familiar to all of us and has been present in schools throughout history. However, the ways in which youth experience bullying have evolved over time, and no clear unified strategy to manage these concerns has emerged. The most accepted definition for bullying requires three criteria to be met: 1) unwanted aggressive behaviors with an intent to inflict harm on another person, 2) an observed or perceived imbalance of power; and 3) the behavior occurs repeatedly or is likely to be repeated.² This definition distinguishes bullying from teasing, where there is no intent to harm and everyone is having fun; conflict, where power is equally balanced; and a mean moment, which is an isolated incident unlikely to be repeated.

Types of bullying may fall into one of five categories.³ Traditionally, bullying was only thought of as physical, verbal, or emotional in nature. Physical bullying may include actions such as hitting, kicking, pinching, or spitting. It may also include taking someone’s things or rude gestures.³ Verbal bullying includes teasing, name-calling, taunting, or threatening.³ Emotional bullying includes leaving someone out, spreading rumors, or purposefully embarrassing someone.³ In recent years, bullying categories have broadened to include sexual bullying and cyberbullying. Sexual bullying includes inappropriate actions based on someone’s sexuality or gender. This may involve sexual statements, inappropriate touching, or even sexual assault or rape.³ Cyberbullying has gained prominence since the emergence of social media and includes posting or sharing negative, harmful, false, or mean content about someone through digital media, (e.g., social media, text, direct message, email).³

The Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey (YRBSS) found that about one in five high school students reported being bullied on school property, and another one in six reported being cyberbullied in the last year.⁴ Prevalence of bullying is highest in the middle school years (28%), followed by high school (16%), and primary school (9%).⁵ Female students report being bullied at higher rates than male students (30% compared to 19% respectively).⁴ Rates of those who are bullied rise to 40% in those who identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual.⁴ The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) collects data on gender and sexually diverse youth and reports that 60% of transgender youth have reported being harassed due to their gender expression.⁶ Several other factors may contribute to certain youth being targeted for bullying including appearance, disabilities, race, religion, social skills development, and socioeconomic status.⁷

Bullying negatively impacts not only those who are bullied, but also the individuals who are bullying others. Immediate impacts of bullying include both physical injury and emotional distress. Studies have shown that those who are bullied are at higher risk for depression, anxiety, sleep difficulties, lower academic achievement, and dropping out of school.⁸ On the other hand, youth who bully others are at increased risk of dropping out of school, physical violence, vandalism, early sexual activity, criminal convictions, and substance misuse.^8,9 The World Health Organization (WHO) recognizes the significant mental and physical health impacts of bullying on youth with longstanding effects well into adulthood, calling it a significant public health problem warranting urgent attention.¹⁰

The focus of bullying situations often lands on the person doing the bullying and the person being bullied. The role of bystanders in these scenarios are commonly overlooked. Bystanders are present in 85% of bullying situations and provide an audience, reinforcing the bullying.¹¹ Removal of the audience in bullying situations should not only mitigate the risk for bullying to occur, but will also reduce the negative impacts that bullying has on those who witness it, even when they are not direct participants.¹² Schools who implement bullying awareness programs that focus on a bystander intervention are likely to be more successful in eliminating bullying and peer victimization behavior.¹³ Bystanders also have the ability to potentially intervene with the person doing the bullying to show that they do not agree with these actions and will not stand for it. Bystanders also have the opportunity to follow up with the person who was targeted to show that they care, do not support the bullying, and may assist in finding help, if necessary.

Between the years 1999 and 2015, anti-bullying legislation has been passed across the United States in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.¹⁴ According to the United States Department of Education, Office of Civil Rights, schools are required to eliminate hostile environments and take steps to prevent harassment from reoccurring.¹⁴ The impact of this legislation may not be clear as schools are not provided financial resources or guidance to improve school climate or security. School-based interventions around bullying have been tried in the United States and across the world with positive results in reducing bullying behavior and improving mental health outcomes in youth.¹⁵ These interventions may include school-wide rules and sanctions, teacher training, classroom rules around peer victimization, conflict resolution training, as well as collaborative efforts with parents and caregivers.¹⁶ Anti-bullying intervention has been shown to reduce peer victim perpetration by up to 23% and peer victimization by up to 20%.¹⁷

Red Card KC

Recognizing the gap in guidance for schools and the lack of resources that many schools have in regards the implementation of effective anti-bullying intervention, Red Card KC was developed to support schools in the Kansas City metropolitan area. The program is bringing awareness to bullying within the community and filling the gap that many schools face with a novel anti-bullying intervention to address this need (Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Example of a Bullying “Tip Card”

Red Card KC is a bullying awareness program primarily targeting bystanders in bullying situations. In 2016, a partnership was formed between Children’s Mercy Kansas City hospital system and the Major League Soccer (MLS) team, Sporting Kansas City. This union began with a naming rights agreement between the hospital system and the MLS team for Sporting Kansas City’s home stadium, Children’s Mercy Park. Through this partnership, the two organizations have been working together to create positive change in the health and wellbeing of the Kansas City community.¹⁸ This collaboration has naturally emphasized focused on the health of youth. The need for a community-wide bullying awareness program was determined through a community needs assessment, discussions with community partners including schools and law enforcement, and valuable feedback from the Children’s Mercy’s Patient Family Advisory Council’s Teen Advisory Board—a board made up of past and present Children’s Mercy patients between the ages of 13 and 18, recommended by Children’s Mercy staff members. The program operates under the Children’s Mercy’s Communications and Marketing department through their Brand Partnerships program along with Sporting Kansas City’s Partnership Marketing department. There are currently two medical advisors who oversee the educational content and curriculum for Red Card KC, who are faculty members of the Division of Developmental and Behavioral Health and within the section of Clinical Psychology and section of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. The program currently has enrolled over 60 schools and community partners in the Kansas City area and continues to grow every year.

The campaign uses a “red card” as a visual tool to empower youth to exemplify its motto, “Call it when you see it,” just as a soccer referee would show a “red card” to a player after a serious offense (ejecting that player from the game and leaving the team shorthanded for the remainder of the game). Soccer is a sport that is growing in popularity within the United States, and by virtue of being played around the world, provides a natural environment for athletes to come together from different backgrounds to compete as a part of a team. Athletes have served as role models for youth throughout history, dating back to Ancient Greece.¹⁹ The Red Card KC campaign recognizes the power that professional athletes have in their influence on youth and was able to create a clear, simple, and strong message for youth to “Call it when you see it” at schools and within their communities around Kansas City. The perspectives of professional soccer players are valuable in the messaging of the campaign where they are effectively able to illustrate the analogy that just as a “red card offense” in soccer let’s the whole team down, taking part in bullying behavior lets the school community down.

The program is delivered to school and community partners through resources educating youth on recognizing bullying, managing bullying situations, and standing up against bullying. It provides red “tip cards,” printed in English and Spanish, to community partners with tips for kids, parents, teachers, and coaches to address bullying situations. It also provides scripts for public address (PA) announcements around bullying awareness for schools during October, Bullying Awareness Month. Red Card KC-branded posters depicting students overcoming diverse bullying situations (including body shaming, verbal abuse, cyberbullying, and discrimination) are provided to community partners to raise awareness and inspire students to stand up to bullying within the schools. A monthly newsletter called “Play Your Cards Right,” is sent out to partners of the Red Card KC program and shares stories around acts of kindness and inspiration. Red Card KC-branded signage is provided for athletic fields and stadiums with rules for sportsmanship. The Children’s Mercy Kansas City medical advisors for the Red Card KC program also serve as resources for community members or groups who would benefit from additional supports including providing educational talks and workshops.

“Call it when you see it” is a call to action for bystanders to stand up to bullying and show that it will not be tolerated in their communities. An important goal of this message is to teach students the values of kindness, empathy, and the importance of creating a strong, caring school community where the members look out for one another, just as teammates on a soccer field might do. Red Card KC puts on interactive assemblies in elementary and middle schools on both the Kansas and Missouri sides of the Kansas City metro during October. These assemblies are presented by a Children’s Mercy mental health professional, a Sporting Kansas City professional soccer player, the official mascot for Sporting Kansas City (“Blue the Dog”) and a school administrator. The assemblies provide a platform for the school administration to share the school’s policies around bullying and that students are supported and safe within the school. The Children’s Mercy mental health professional provides students education around the impact of bullying on mental health and what to do if someone finds themselves in a bullying situation or is a witness to a bullying situation. The professional soccer player shares his personal experiences overcoming bullying or feeling like an outsider. Blue the Dog brings joy, excitement, and comedic relief to an otherwise serious and important conversation. Considering the growing number of community partners and limited resources to provide in-person assemblies, Red Card KC has also developed a “virtual assembly” that is provided to schools who do not receive an in-person assembly, along with the educational material and resources provided to all school and community partners. The program also recognizes and celebrates students who show kindness within their school and communities by presenting them as KITS Champions—standing for “Kindness In the Schools,” where “kit” is another name for a soccer uniform. There are two students chosen per school based on a process of nomination by their peers and teachers. These students receive a letter recognizing their achievement, a Sporting Kansas City jersey, a commemorative Red Card KC and Sporting Kansas City-branded soccer scarf, and recognition on the field of a Sporting Kansas City match that year.

Conclusion

Children’s Mercy Kansas City and Sporting Kansas City recognize the widespread negative social impacts of bullying in our community and nationally. In the midst of a youth mental health crisis in the United States, it is essential that we stand up to bullying and “Call it when you see it.” Bystanders play a critical role in putting an end to bullying and are the primary targets of the Red Card KC campaign. Creating an anti-bullying culture, celebrating kindness in the schools, and providing bullying resources for our community partners to bring an awareness and hope that we can put an end to this longstanding problem.