
Despite the odds, NYAB20 went ahead online and was a phenomenal success!
With over 250 participants including 10 schools with 30+ young people in each session! This year’s conference was especially designed to fit into busy school and workdays.
Designed by young people for young people and professionals, the conference shared the best practice around anti-bullying work both in schools and in communities. There was a range of expert guest speakers, interactive workshops, QA sessions and space to share ideas, the aim? to enhance and improve Norfolk’s knowledge and everyone’s approach to anti-bullying work.
Where shall we send your goodie bags? We have created a short survey to gather your information & feedback. Do take a minute to complete if you can…its really helpful. Thank you! 👉🏽CLICK HERE
The day was co-presented by young people who did an amazing job of keeping the audience informed and leading them into the next agenda item.
“ Even if we only helped one person we did well! It’s amazing to see that whilst helping others we are also helping ourselves. Many of us have experienced bullying, we may not be able to change the past but we can change the future for others and ourselves and I think today we did that” Aimee. Age 16, Breckland YAB
Here is are a short summary of the panelists along with the slides for the conference which you are able to download.
Dr Nathalie Noret – Senior lecturer in psychology, York St John University.
Explored the subject of Cyber Bullying and Staying Safe. Dr Noret’s research explores the relationship between bullying and mental health for those who experience and witness bullying.
Download the presentation slides here:
Megan Cletheroe is a Senior Youth Mental Health Worker at MAP and gave a presentation exploring Bullying and Mental Health along with some Self-Help Strategies & coping strategies.
Paul Hanmore is the Anti-Bullying Training Manager at The Diana Award and gave a presentation around understanding bullying and how to tackle it. The Diana Award’s mission is to foster, develop and inspire positive change in the lives of young people.
Lizzy Olley is a Youth Worker for Norwich YAB and also works on the Loudspeaker project. They delivered a training session around Bystander Intervention, illustrating that we all have the ability and duty to stop negative behaviours when we see them.

Broadland YAB also directed us to their podcast tackling casual discrimination in schools. 👉🏽 CLICK HERE

The podcast can be listened to anytime and here are some class discussion points if you’d like to reflect on the podcast:
➡️ Can you think of any examples where you see discriminative slurs happening?
➡️ Think about what you could do as a bystander? How could you help?
➡️ Why is it important to tackle casual discrimination whenever we see it?
➡️ Could your class make a pledge to challenge discriminatory language?
Next up we heard from Joe Henson who is the LGBT+ Awareness Trainer atNorfolk LGBT+ Project. A community based service run by & for the LGBT+ community. Joe talked about to preventing LGBT+ bullying.

We also heard some great advice from the Norfolk Police Safer Schools on Bullying and the Law. Victoria Rush covered the different roles of the school and the police in dealing with bullying and the laws around this. The main message: Report it!
South Norfolk Youth Commissioner, Plamena presented a workshop on bullying and Resilience – looking at ways of building resilience delivering a session for other young people to help them develop personal strength to be able to bounce back during tough times.
Great Yarmouth YAB focused on the radical ways that schools’ responses to bullying could be transformed, researching two whole-school anti-bullying programs: the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program and the KiVa Anti-bullying Program. Using their own ideas about how bullying should be dealt with in schools and testimonies from schools that have actually implemented the programs.
In the afternoon CPD Sessions for Adult Professionals Only: These included Breckland and West Youth Advisory Boards leading Assertiveness Training Developed by National charity Kidscape.
Here are some website that we would recommend to try.
The Mix | Childline |
Anna Freud – On My Mind | Doc Ready |
PAPYRUS | Young Minds |
Kooth | selfharm UK |
Calm Harm | Catch It |
eQuoo | Mee Two |
ThinkNinja | All of these apps are free to download from Google Play or the App store. More information on these apps can be found on the NHS Apps Library. |
ChatHealth | Health Passport App |
MAP | Norfolk LGBT+ Project |
Carers Matter Norfolk | Autism Anglia |
ADHD Norfolk | Norfolk County Council |
Nelsons Journey | Matthew Project |
ICaSH | Please go to Norfolk County Council’sNorfolk Community Directory to find out more about services that are local to you. |