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Bullying and Suicide:
How Social Workers Can Help

By Elizabeth Drucker

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), both bullying and suicide are major public health problems that significantly affect youth in the United States. While the CDC explains that there is not a direct causal link between the two, it is known that they greatly influence each other. The students who are most at risk for both bullying and suicide are youth with disabilities and learning differences. LGBTQ youth are also more frequently targeted in bullying situations and have a higher rate of suicide. Bullying can mean a lot of different things, but the CDC explains that it “includes actions such as making threats, spreading rumors, attacking someone physically or verbally, and excluding someone from a group on purpose.”

Suicide is a major concern for social workers of all stripes. The CDC collects data on this emerging public health issue, including among young adults. For example, they found that in the span of one year, “nearly 14% of American high school students seriously consider suicide, nearly 11% make plans about how they would end their lives, and 6.3% actually attempt suicide.” In order to reduce one major risk factor for suicide, bullying, social workers should learn more about the ins and outs of this social problem and how they can use their specialized skills to assist and advocate for young people in their communities.

School social workers may see bullying the most, but these children and young adults may appear in almost any other context. For example, social workers assessing and evaluating suicidal patients in the emergency department or community mental health center may see the extent of how bullying increases the risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviors. Social workers in private practice may also take on cases where a major source of the client’s psychosocial stressors is through bullying at school or elsewhere in the community.

Like in most public health problems, prevention is the best line of defense. And there is a lot social workers can do to step up to the plate. First, at the school and community level, it is important to help all students see that bullying will not be tolerated on campus. Education about the negative impacts of bullying on students’ mental health is also essential for anyone who works at a school. School social workers should also forge partnerships with the other professionals in their schools. Bullying can take place almost anywhere, including in some less-supervised areas such as school buses, bathrooms, playgrounds, and the cafeteria. This means that it is important to partner with school nurses, librarians, bus drivers, and office staff who may also witness bullying. Maintaining a unified front will help provide consistency, allowing students to see that there is zero tolerance for bullying behaviors.

Starting conversations on both bullying and mental health at schools is vitally important. And there are many ways social workers can do this with and without the help of other education professionals. Discussions about bullying in assemblies can be highly effective. Other methods may include reading a book where the main character is bullied and allowing the students to have an adult-moderated discussion about what they have learned. Social workers are experts in mental health, so they play a key role in educating other school professionals about the negative impacts of bullying.

Once bullied students are identified by school social workers, teachers, or parents, it is important for the social worker to advocate for the student. Keeping in mind the risk factors and warning signs for suicide is essential. Many of these students will have other mental health issues that you will want to help with. Of course, it may also be necessary to provide referrals to other mental health resources off campus. Because bullying leads to negative mental health outcomes, you will want to make sure you are aware of any signs that the student might need more immediate help.

Recruiting parents to play a supportive role can also be helpful in the aftermath of a bullying situation. Partnering with both the parents of the student who is being bullied and the one who is doing the bullying is essential, because both students will have mental health issues that need to be tended to. The CDC also explains that students who are doing the bullying have psychological problems too. Additionally, the agency suggests that the ones who are doing the bullying and are also being bullied at the same time seem to have the most issues and highest risk factors for suicide.

Of course, you want to work in an organization that has zero tolerance for bullying, but it will always come up periodically. As a social worker focused on preventing negative mental health outcomes such as suicide, you should always be on the lookout for new ways to promote an inclusive and respectful environment for all students. You can help the students doing the bullying see that their actions are harmful. Like so many other things, this is a learning experience for students who might not be aware of how they are impacting their classmates. You can also be a healthy role model for your students and show them how to maintain positive relationships with others while promoting their own mental health.

Bullying and suicide are each complex public health problems in their own right. When they are meshed, they create additional issues that social workers will have to contend with in their daily work. With some persistence and creativity, social workers have the opportunity to make a critical difference on a macro level as well as for individual students on their own. Cyberbullying is a relatively new form of bullying. This can happen when students post information about their classmates on Facebook, for example. Keep abreast of how new technology can affect old problems such as bullying and suicide.

— Elizabeth Drucker is a freelance writer and mental health advocate from Illinois.