To educate people about the bullying resolution proposed at the 2018 Mass Conference Annual Meeting, the ONA Ministry Team of the Massachusetts Conference offers these resources.

Definition of Bullying 

Most experts define bullying as unprovoked, repeated and aggressive actions or threats of action by one or more persons who have (or are perceived to have) more power or status than their victim in order to cause fear, distress or harm. Bullying can be physical, verbal, psychological or a combination of these three. Specific examples include name-calling, taunting, teasing and put-downs; saying or writing inappropriate things about a person; deliberately excluding a person from activities or conversation; threatening a person with bodily harm; hitting, kicking, tripping, shoving or otherwise inappropriately touching a person; taking or damaging a person’s belongings; and making a person do things [they do] not want to do. Bullying can also occur through electronic means via Web postings, e-mails, chat rooms and text messaging.
 
The above definition can be broken into four key components. Bullying involves:

• Unprovoked actions or threats
• Motivated by an intent to cause fear, distress or harm
• Repeated and aggressive acts
• Against someone with less power

 
Text of Mass Resolution (pdf)

Sampling of Resources on Bullying (pdf)

Faith Doesn’t Bully  

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