Jessica Staniland: I think look, the most important thing for me is, always be curious, always be open to learn more about what's going on. It often is never going to be focused just on one particular environment. It usually spreads across a number of environments. So I guess be cognizant of that and ask questions that are quite broad to try and get as much information as you possibly can. I think the other thing is, look, there are going to be times when kids will either downplay what's going on because they're worried about being snitches or they're worried about getting in trouble or the bullying increasing, so we really need to be aware of that too.
We don't just need to listen to what they're saying to us, but we also need to be looking at those subtle cues in how they're engaging with us, their body language, their tone of voice, that sort of thing. Is there something that indicates that they're worried about what might happen if they're actually really open and honest about this?
And then the other thing is also, some students will just not even recognise that this is bullying and this is something to be concerned about. So I think remembering as a practitioner, that our role is to tell them or to help them to understand what is appropriate behaviour and what isn't appropriate behaviour, and let them know what is bullying, because I think sometimes it is hard to understand. There may be subtle experiences of neglect or there may be more subtle and less obvious situations that maybe they've just sort of let go and thought, oh, well, that's just what happens. Sometimes they don't know that actually that can be really harmful and really damaging in the longer term.