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A one-day conference focusing on strategies to prevent and handle bullying situations in schools and communities, and featuring researchers and practitioners from the fields of education, counseling, law and public health will be hosted by the University of Georgia College of Education on Friday, June 1.

The Safe and Welcoming Schools Conference: Preventing Bullying in Schools & Communities will focus on topics such as: creating safe zones for diverse students, developing legal remedies for bullying, reducing bullying against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer youth, implementing strategies to improve family support for at-risk students, and exploring connections between bullying and educational outcomes.

Local educators, researchers and youth will discuss practical considerations of implementing bullying prevention policies and programs, and provide Georgia-specific perspectives on how to promote safe schools and communities.

The program will feature two plenary sessions as well as morning and afternoon breakout sessions. The opening plenary is titled, “The Public Health Perspective in Youth Violence Prevention” and the speaker will be Rodney Hammond, recently retired director of the Division of Youth Violence Prevention at the Centers for Disease.

The closing plenary is titled, “Local Implementation of Bullying Policies: From Laws, Policies, and Programs to Safe Schools,” and participants will include: Scott Berry, president, Georgia Sheriff’s Association; John Dayton, professor, UGA College of Education; Andy Horne, dean, UGA College of Education; Bill Nigut, Southeast Regional Director of the Anti-Defamation League; Jack Parish, executive director, Georgia Association of Educational Leaders; and Robin W. Shearer, Athens-Clarke County Juvenile Court Judge. UGA students will represent perspectives of students subjected to bullying.

Breakout sessions featuring presentations by UGA faculty members from the College of Education, the College of Family and Consumer Sciences and the College of Public Health will include such topics as:

• Georgia Safe Schools: Creating Safe Zones for Diverse Students
• Legal Remedies for Bullying in Higher Education: Laws, Policies, and Practice
• Legal Remedies for Bullying in K-12 Schools: Laws, Policies, and Practice
• Prevention is the Best Medicine: Preventing Bullying through School and Classroom Change
• Reducing Gay Bullying in Schools: Supporting Students and Families
• Romance, Aggression, and High School Graduation: Trajectories of Georgia students from 6th to 12th grade
• Strengthening Families to Prevent Youth Violence

For more information or to register online, click on Conferences & Workshops at:
www.coe.uga.edu/events/