Dr. Colman Noctor:

To answer the question on culture, it would be quicker to turn the Titanic than to make changes in culture. The issue is that as well as being very positive, the culture of a school can also hide harm in plain sight. Ms O'Malley pointed out that issues relating to gender, sexuality and sexual assault are accepted as subjects for locker room talk or as the way things are. There is often much more emphasis in schools on academics than there is on students' well-being. We have to address the bad cultures before we start encouraging the good ones. First, we must identify where the culture is not good enough. There may be a culture of dismissal, avoidance and brushing things under the carpet when a bullying issue arises because it might affect the reputation of the school or whatever it might be.

We talk about parents being the solution and not always the problem. It is often the passive parent, not the argumentative parent, whose child is disenfranchised in the ways we have been discussing. The parent may not feel able to go to the school. Parents might say they have brought an issue up twice, for instance, and nothing happened. The parent who has a path worn to the school principal's office is actively trying to manage something. It is when the parent has never approached the school, or perhaps did so once through a telephone call, that there is nobody advocating for the child. We should encourage parents to not let these matters go. Just because one has tried and it has not worked does not mean one should not keep trying. As I said in my opening statement, these issues have to reach a resolution. It is not good enough just to say that one tried but it is still happening. It is not about having a zero-tolerance culture but, rather, a culture that has a value system whereby bullying and mistreatment are not accepted.