Like every morning of the week, three of them answer 3020. Anna Bisch, a listening psychologist, headset on, fills out a very precise form on her computer: who is aware of the violence? What type of harassment? Moral, physical or digital? THEYoung people, as families can call, in the event of repeated violence in the school setting. This issue has been around since 2012, and is one of the tools put forward by the National Education, to fight against this scourge and put forward on the occasion of the national day against school bullying Thursday, November 18. 6% of the 12 million students in school are subjected to bullying, or 720,000 students, according to a figure calculated by the Senate, published in an information report dated September 22, 2021 and based on several surveys by the Directorate of evaluation, foresight and performance, within the Ministry of Education, which is in charge of education statistics.
When a mother calls for her 11-year-old son, Anna Bish takes notes, advises, points, gives professional contacts. “What she described to me was quite violent and the way adults trivialized what was going on at school, it was also very violent”, recount the psychologist.
In 10 to 15% of cases, it is the young people who call directly. The rest are the parents, often distraught, sometimes angry. “What we do on this line is really support the parents”, Explain Anna Bisch who knows how to recognize the signs of harassment, “when parents start telling us: ‘my child who loved school no longer wants to go, he no longer sleeps at night, he can no longer keep up'”, she explains. “Often the child will hide that he lives harassment for a very long time from his parents because he is ashamed, he does not want to be a balance and then he is afraid of reprisals”, adds the psychologist.
On this platform, there are three listeners in the morning from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. and two listeners from 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. on weekdays and on Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. They are employees. During the call, the listener assesses the situation. He can therefore give advice, direct to professionals, but also forward the file to the harassment referent of the academy.
It is the association “École des parents” which manages this telephone platform, in exchange for a grant of 330,000 euros this year. Mirentxu Bacquerie is the general manager and she has seen an increase in calls in recent years. “We will have an average of 20,000 calls handled, taken care of over the year. During the school holidays it will calm down, it will resume after a little crazy, at certain times it sounds tor azimuths“, she explains. It is necessary “30 to 40 minutes” to manage each call, according to her, “So we are doing with the means allocated to us by the National Education.” The number of calls has increased sevenfold since the number was created in 2012. A lot of work has been done to make it known.
School harassment: “an average of 20,000 calls handled” by the listening platform – Report by Noémie Bonnin
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