Introduction

The project YAB aims to provide proper, innovative and continuing support to both students with disabilities/special needs and students without special needs and those who seek to educate/work with them in order to tackle bullying/cyberbullying issues, improve socialisation, reduce marginalisation and ease both their lives in school and their migration into adulthood, to allow them to enjoy fully rounded lives and contribute more widely to society.

The project will also provide support to and input for training teachers in promoting equity, diversity, and inclusion in learning through educational institutions and wider society, via more in-depth understanding and work with individuals with disabilities, and the provision of educational materials. 

Specific Objectives are:

SO1: to promote the development and acquisition of proper and useful knowledge in teachers to deal with bullying and cyberbullying 

SO2: to enhance the empowerment of young students providing them with main tools for critical thinking against bullying and cyberbullying 

SO3: to foster the awareness of the risks related to bullying and cyberbullying and the unconscious use of internet and social media

This training course is addressed to school teachers and will be the theoretical and methodological basis for the implementation of the project activities. 

In order to fight bullying and cyberbullying, it is essential to involve and support teachers in finding innovative educational solutions and responding appropriately to cases of bullying and cyberbullying, in particular for students with disabilities. The aim of of this training material is to develop teachers' knowledge, competences and skills in the prevention and recognition of bullying and cyberbullying cases and to provide them with appropriate competences and tools to work with their students through the peer-to-peer approach ("Young Ambassador methodology").

The mission of the YAB methodology is to contribute, through practical testing, to the understanding of efficient pedagogical teaching methods that can be applied in schools to promote the culture of mutual understanding, tolerance and solidarity among students, to prevent and fight against discrimination and violence against the most vulnerable students. 

It is fundamental to train teachers in order to ensure thay have an active role in prevention and constrast against bullying and cyberbullying since:

1) If teachers are not able to identify and contrast aggressors they will learn that their acts do not have consequences and they will keep behaving violently. 

2) when no measures are taken, the number of students who participate in bullying can increase and so does the measures the schools will need to take into consideration (ex. reeducative measures for students and not only sanctions to the agressors).

To counter bullying, an initial key role can be played by the family and educators through:

• train social and relational skills, prosocial behaviors (e.g., empathy and cooperation but also assertiveness, conflict management and relational fears)

• enable children to develop confidence in their own abilities, reinforcing their qualities and helping them to accept their frailties, insecurities, as normal and not diminishing facts

• share with children a value system based on listening, respect for others and valuing differences.