Will the Bully Behavior's Ever End?

When is this ever going to end?  When will society step up and say "You know what we are sick of this and enough is just enough!".
Yet sadly another local child has committed suicide because of a Cyber Bully.  While some may say was her problems so bad that she felt she must kill herself, she was popular had lot's of things going for her.  On the other hand how could we ever seriously question something like that?  The hurt and the loneliness these children have no matter what form of bullying they are getting is just so wrong on so many levels.  My son personally is just now finding his way out of the dark hole of being bullied for so much.  This was because of some great friends that have stood up and said we accept you for who you are.  Think about those kids who do not have that support, who feel so alone as if they had no one to turn to.  It should never be this way.  A child should never feel alone there should always be some sort of social support rather it be a teacher, parent a friend that they should be able to go to.
I do find it odd that the community only picks up and says OK this must stop while the fire is hot but when the light dims down a little and the dust begins to settle you hear nothing more about supporting the fight against bully behaviors.  Just this week I received at work this Bully seminar training for Social Workers out of the need for the past local tragedy.  My question is why do we have to wait for a child to die?  Why are we not doing something to prevent this before it happens.  Why  are we not trying to save our children and others before they pass away.  All these children's voices need to be heard and let's stop this.  Words matter, actions matter let's make it happen and not just say "Oh this is such a shame" yes it is a shame let's make it happen......

Summer is fast approaching

It has been some time since I have been able to blog but finally I have a quick second to throw some information out there.
Summer is fast approaching and the kiddo's will be out and about playing until dark. This is the time to really just sit down with the kids and let them know the right way to handle conflict if it should arise.  Today in my group at work I am focusing on Conflict and "Good & Bad" teasing.  We all know kids get playing in the summer and they often forget that a simple joke might just hurt another child's feelings.  So if you were looking for a time to have a chat about this then now is the perfect time to do so.

http://www.oregonfest.net/ 

We are also going to be sharing a booth with our friends from ASSE at the Oregon Fest which is held on May 18th so if you get a chance head out to see us. As always please continue to spread the word about Tarique's Voice and let's put a end to the bullies as we know them.

April is Autism Awareness Month

     It has been awhile since I have been able to blog for Tarique's Voice as much as I hate to say that!  Things for us have been rolling right along slowly but surely.  Numbers coming in for the website show about 10 visitors a day and we have been at a slow roll for new visitors on our Facebook page however we will continue to plug along and advocate.  On the bright side more and more folks locally are finding out about us and are interested in what Tarique's Voice has to offer.
     Starting this month we will be doing (4) 45 minute "bully educational"groups with the Zepf Center after school youth program.  After their educational group we will do a small survey and then follow up with the same groups at the end of their 8 week program.  I am so very excited about this and extremely grateful the Director has given us the opportunity to do this.  I have spent many hours looking at how mental health, school violence and bullies are linked together so this is a great opportunity for us to get in through the Mental Health doorways.  I look forward to being their point person when they are having issues with clients who have shown to either be a bully or a victim and providing education and support to those individuals.
     I am also excited with the possibility of getting Tarique's Voice into 2 local charter schools located in the Toledo area.  We are still working on this venture but it does look promising.  We have been asked to partner up with the local area representative for ASSE - International Foreign Exchange program, so the 3rd Sunday of May we will be sitting up a booth at the Oregon Fest located in Oregon, Ohio.  In May is also the area NAMI walk we are planning to hopefully get a team together and get out there and walk supporting NAMI and marketing Tarique's Voice at the same time.

Please feel free to contact us if you would like to help in any way is appreciated and a great donation write off for the end of the year, not to mention great.....

     We are hoping to receive enough donations to market Tarique's Voice further and getting the word out there.  As you know we do NOT charge the school's or any other organization that request our help a cent for us to come out and help.  We operate totally on donations and other support's.  Currently on our wish list we are looking for help to purchase a large back window decal that will cover the entire back portion of the car window.  Supplies such as paper, pens, coloring pencils, crayons, glue sticks, construction paper, small prizes such as "stickers, pencils".  We are also in need with help covering the day to day cost of running the website and the phone lines which is very minimal but still a cost we have to pay.

Threw my pitch now it is party time tomorrow

Well yesterday I had a meeting at the school for Tarique-Jabrielle and as always the team he work's with had their ducks in a row. I absolutely love his new case manager that was assigned to him because it feels as if she really does have his best interest at hand. It only made sense that she was assigned to him because he has like 3 classes with her.  At any rate I proudly wore Tariques-Voice arm bracelet's.  I threw it out there a few times during his meeting and then in the end had an in depth conversation about who Tariques-Voice is and what we were all about.  A few of the teacher's were very receptive to it and a few had the look on their face of wanting to be else where.  I see it this way at least I planted that seed.
There was one teacher however who was a little on the defensive side when I stated that Tarique and I was reading the book "Look me in the eye". She implied that it might be to Big of a book for his age.  I personally love the book, however with that being said it did make me think that maybe we should have a few more options when it comes to the book project.  His case manager at the end gave me a wonderful recommendation for a book to read so that will be my next project before I do recommend it.
The team is meeting again this Sunday to discuss upcoming projects, town hall meeting hopefully to spring out in April to kick off the month of Autism Awareness.

Tomorrow we celebrate our 4th child and her sweet 16.  There will be over 200 kids in attendance which I am super excited about. I am passing out bracelets, having an UpStander pledge for them to sign if they chose to do so and plugging Tariques-Voice right before the cake is served.  Yes I know, it is her sweet 16 but this is an audience that I can not pass up the opportunity to approach and announce the presence of Tariques-Voice in the Community.

This is a long over due party I think for just about everyone. The weather has been just horrible and it will be nice to eat, dance and laugh with the community.
Food is provided by our dear friend the amazing and talented Greg Ruffty and Extra Virgin Catering Company, Arab Food provided by Fettosh of Toledo, Sweets by Shatila Dearborn, Photo Booth by Toledo.Pix, DJ provided by DJOneTyme.  There has been so much put into this planning and the Hotel has been amazing with pulling together a team to make it happen the way we all had hoped it would.  So let's hope it goes without a hitch.

Upcoming Town Hall Meeting - Information to Come

          Town Hall Bully Meeting
It does take a "Whole Village" to raise a child and with that being said we want to hear what you have to say. We would like to have a town hall type meeting to see just what are your main concerns with the community, the schools and what can we do for you and your children?

Our main goal is to Educate, Support and Encourage those who are experiencing bully behaviors.  We want to be the voice for those who for whatever reason can not use their own voice.  Our organization would like to take this to a whole new level and advocate in our communities, schools free of charge.  Part of the barriers for the educational system is the cost.  Getting a variety of "Anti Bully" organizations into the schools is just to expensive and let's be honest where is the follow up? 

With Tarique's Voice we want to get into the school, show the kid's what impact Bully behaviors have on those who they target.  We then want to continue to follow up with particular kids who may have been identified as either Bullies or victims. Work with them in small groups such as a "Do you really know me" type of activity and continue to empower each one through out the entire year as needed to maintain them as anti-bully peers. The educational system is so overwhelmed with educating these kids, do they really have time to provide interventions like we can?  Can they afford to pay an additional counselor or a bully advocate to service these kids throughout the year on a large scale? NO!! They can't and that is where we can step in and again best charge FREE!

I do know that Perrysburg High school has started a group called "Jacket's against Bullies". We are in hopes that Tarique's Voice can possibly met with that group on a monthly basis and talk about the activities going on in the schools and help to educate and support that group.  Change it up lunches could go on in the grade schools and the list goes on and on. 

The best thing is that all this would be free of charge for the schools, we would solely be operating on fundraisers, donations from the communities and local businesses.  Tarique's Voice would never charge the schools a fee to do this. 

Tarique's Voice was created out of love and support for my son Tarique and the expriences he has had being a victim of continued bully behaviors.  As his mom I did not want to wait until he was dead to take action and because it takes a village to raise a child, I consider all those other children who are bullied in our communities our responsibility.  I would hope that our school's would take a look at the Anti-Bully Organization that was born in their backyard to continue to make a difference.

We are aiming to have our very first town hall meeting in April to help kick off Autism Awareness Month.  Details of the event to come soon, we hope to see you there.

Wristband Madness

Oh it is wristband time here at Tarique's Voice and we are getting excited. We have placed an order for 300 wristbands to get started. We put it out there and the winning statement was this:

Tarique's Voice - "One Bully at a Time"
Inside would have the website to promote the organization

It is so exciting to see things now starting to come together so that we can get into these schools and communities with the Anti Bully message before the end of the school year. We are hoping to hit the ground running when the school start's for the 2014-2015 school year.
Monthly meeting of the executives will be this week and I am super excited to see what these great minds have to share.
It's getting heated with these advocates and the passion is very evident and even more exciting to see the community positively respond to our message.

I can't wait to see what the new month's ahead have to offer.

Remember if you pass along any message please let these kids know....

You are not invisible.

www.tariques-voice.org

Look me in the Eye Project for Tarique's Voice

You know we at Tarique's Voice are so blessed. Today I received a wonderful message from Lori Mendoza who has been a top supporter for Tarique since day one. I mean this lady has never backed down for a second. Whatever the organization has needed she has been always more than willing to pitch in and we so appreciate her. I had shared the story of reading the book "Look me in the Eye" a life story of someone with Aspergers with my son Tarique. I felt that this story was all his words as if the author had sat and just wrote word for word whatever my son might have told him. I also shared that if this book was read by kids in school maybe they would think twice before they speak or assume. What does Lori do? She immediately started to think that what if we get a bunch of these books loan them to the junior high and get kids to read them. Those who read them, share their knowledge about it such as a small report or something of that nature then they are entered into a drawing for a Xbox or something big as such.
Right away she went on line asking for help and donations of the books. I am so proud to say that she stated some will be coming as quick as Friday.  Can you believe it? I am so excited to get this started and Tarique was over the moon with it.
It is people like her that make us work and we are just getting started in this grass roots movement.
Thank you, Thank you Thank you Lori