In December 2009, Meg Boustead, Head of Safeguarding, took the lead for driving the anti-bullying agenda in Sunderland in order to improve outcomes for young people in this area. Since December, the following progress has been made:

• The Implementation Plan linked to the Anti-Bullying Strategy of 2007/08 has been reviewed
• Work has started with Anti-Bullying Alliance, a regional support organisation, to update the Anti-Bullying Strategy
• Also with Anti-Bullying Alliance, initiated a schools survey to understand how schools deal with anti-bullying
• A review of the Anti-Bullying CharterMark is underway, to reflect changes since it was first developed
• An Anti-Bullying Conference for young people has been organised which will take place in spring 2010
• Research into ARCH, the racial abuse monitoring service, is going on, to consider how this can be used to reporting bullying incidents
• The recruitment process for an Anti-Bullying Co-ordinator has commenced

Future work for the group has been identified as:

• Holding an Anti-Bullying Conference for professionals in Autumn 2010
• Developing a young-people friendly version of the Anti-Bullying Strategy, in consultation with young people

If you would like any further details, or want to know how you can become involved in anti-bullying work, please contact Nicola Appleby, Commissioning Officer in the Joint Commissioning Team on 0191 566 1832 or email: nicola.appleby@sunderland.gov.uk.