I'd be glad to.
From the point of view of what's happening in schools today, we hear from partners who are working in schools, who are teachers, and who are designing curricula for schools, that bullying is a significant issue affecting the health and well-being of schoolchildren. In fact, we have funded an organization called PreVAiL that works as a research organization to prevent violence and to develop curricula for teachers so that they can, in the school setting, do a better job of helping students both understand bullying and how to prevent it and cope with bullying.
From the evidence that we have, and from the evidence that comes from surveys, like the health behaviour in school-age children survey that the World Health Organization administers, there's a significant problem in our schools with violence and with children being bullied and threatened. It's something that we at the Public Health Agency take very seriously from the perspective of our role in helping equip communities, and schools as part of communities, with the tools they need to understand this issue and do something about it.
In the children's programs that we're responsible for, we're focused on kids who are in very vulnerable situations, single-parent families, those who may be living in conditions that are not conducive to them developing, as children, the skills that other kids that come from more advantaged circumstances develop. In those situations, what our funding programs do is support on-the-ground community programs for kids and families, so they can come into a safe situation, talk about the issues that are affecting them, and get the help and support they need to develop the positive mental health skills that will see them into the future.
The evaluations that we've done of these programs are showing such good effect for these kids. When you visit these sites, you see the caring environment that is safe and where other kids of the same age are working with counsellors, and their parents are learning how to deal with difficult situations, you can see the value and the need for communities to advance these programs for vulnerable kids.
We come at it in two ways.