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When Ben was 11, his parents noticed his grades had dropped. He stopped talking about school. On Sunday evenings, he often complained about stomachaches and begged his mom to keep him home the next day.

鈥淭hese are all typical signs there might be a bullying problem,鈥� says Bettina D茅nervaud, co-founder of the Swiss initiative Hilfe bei Mobbing, which translates as 鈥淗elp With Bullying.鈥� She and her two colleagues use a 30-point checklist to evaluate whether there is an underlying issue of mental, emotional, and physical bullying or something else鈥攎aybe a conflict, which might require conflict resolution. 鈥淎 conflict is usually resolved in a matter of days or weeks, but bullying can go on for months or even years,鈥� D茅nervaud says.

What happens next sounds counterintuitive. Instead of being punished, the bullies are invited to help the bullied student. In a 2008 that looked at 220 bullying cases, the No-Blame Approach, as this method is known, was successful in 192, or 87%, of the cases. In most evaluated schools, it only took two or three weeks for the bullying to stop.

This stunning success rate prompted Bettina D茅nervaud to sign up for training with German mediator Detlef Beck in 2016 and to start a consulting office for bullying in 2019.

With Ben, D茅nervaud began by encouraging a personal talk between him and the teacher he trusts most. (D茅nervaud or one of her colleagues is sometimes present in person or via Zoom if the teacher has not been trained in bullying intervention.) The goal is for Ben to talk openly and confidentially about everything that happened, his emotions, and his thoughts about the bullies. 

鈥淭his is an opportunity for them to get everything off their chest that bears down on them and to make sure we have their consent for the next steps,鈥� D茅nervaud explains. 鈥淣othing happens against the victim鈥檚 wishes, and even the parents aren鈥檛 told details about what the child revealed in the confidential talk.鈥� 

In Ben鈥檚 case, this was the first time anybody learned that the bullying had been much worse than his parents and teachers assumed. It included other children tripping and shoving Ben, name-calling, and excluding him from games. He was also voted 鈥渦gliest鈥� in his class in an online 鈥減oll.鈥� The bullying had started much earlier and gone on for much longer than the parents feared. The teacher also asked what would help him feel safe.

The second step is the core of the No-Blame Approach. It includes calling six to eight children whom the teacher chooses into a meeting set up as a social get-together: in Ben鈥檚 case, three of the bullies, three students Ben felt he could count on, and two 鈥渘eutral鈥� tagalongs. The children are not told the meeting is about Ben. 鈥淚 have a problem,鈥� the teacher might start the discussion after some small talk. 鈥淚 noticed some students don鈥檛 feel supported in class. What can we do to help them, for instance, Ben?鈥� 

The teacher carefully avoids calling out the bullies and instead says: 鈥淚 notice the other students are looking up to you. What you say counts.鈥� In D茅nervaud鈥檚 experience, 鈥淭hat immediately makes the bully feel seen. They feel they matter.鈥�

The teacher then asks for suggestions: 鈥淲hat do you think you could do to help?鈥�

One boy volunteered, 鈥淲e could include him in our afternoon soccer group.鈥� Another suggested, 鈥淚 could talk to him in the breaks.鈥� 

The group writes these suggestions on a whiteboard.

The third step includes follow-ups with all students, including Ben, within the next few weeks. If necessary, the intervention might be repeated or tweaked.

鈥淭he goal is to change the social dynamic,鈥� D茅nervaud says, 鈥渁nd to lay open what has been happening.鈥� Younger children often start crying in these meetings, D茅nervaud has observed, 鈥渂ecause they realize for the first time what has been happening and how unhappy the bullying victim has been. We talk about empathy, tolerance, and respect. How do I want to be treated, and how do I treat others?鈥�

The No-Blame Approach was developed in the U.K. in the early 1990s by psychologist Barbara Maines and educator George Robinson. Even in severe bullying cases, this approach encourages educators and psychologists not to blame and punish the perpetrators, except for criminal offenses. Two , Heike Blume, and Detlef Beck, simplified the approach further and have trained more than 20,000 educators in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland since 2003.

Switzerland is number one in bullying, according to the global 2018 (Programme for International Student Assessment) study by the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). The survey shows a rise in school bullying since the previous PISA survey in 2015, with the rate of physical bullying in Switzerland. 

Bettina D茅nervaud can only speculate about the reasons: 鈥淢aybe the pressure to perform?鈥�

Experts agree that bullying can cause , including depression and anxiety, self-harm, health complaints, and decreased academic achievement. 鈥淚f this issue is not dealt with, the harm can persist for many years, even into adulthood,鈥� D茅nervaud observed. A Washington Post analysis found nearly in the U.S. in recent years when a bullied student took his or her own life. 

Almost every fifth student in the and Europe says they have experienced bullying. Nearly half of teens say they have been the victim of cyberbullying, according to . In the U.S., most states have enacted , but how they are implemented on the ground varies greatly, not only from state to state but also from school to school.

D茅nervaud has been a language teacher for more than two decades, mostly for adults but also for teenagers and children. Because parents, students, and teachers frequently asked her for advice on bullying, she grasped the enormity of the need. She decided to focus on that issue: 鈥淚 realized there were not a lot of specialized offerings. In the standard teacher training, the topic is addressed in a two-hour lecture, which simply isn鈥檛 sufficient.鈥� Concerned parents or teenagers are often told to call the mental health hotline, D茅nervaud says, 鈥渂ut it usually offers general psychological advice, not specifically how to proceed and what the next steps should be regarding bullying.鈥� 

Hers is the only office in Switzerland solely dedicated to the issue of bullying, though the magnitude of the problem is rising worldwide.

She and her two colleagues get about 10 calls a week, she says, 鈥渕ostly from parents or from schools who request training for their staff.鈥� She is frustrated by what she sees as a failure of schools to take the issue seriously. 鈥淲e often hear, 鈥極h, the kids will sort it out.鈥� We sometimes see glaring inaction by the schools who try to dodge responsibility,鈥� D茅nervaud says. 鈥淭oo often, we learn that the schools do nothing, or even worse, they put the victim and the perpetrator at one table and expect them to sort it out. That鈥檚 almost always counterproductive.鈥� 

In D茅nervaud鈥檚 experience, punishing the perpetrators tends to worsen the bullying for the victim. 鈥淯sually, the bullies will make the victim 鈥榩ay.鈥� Or the victim gets sent into therapy, enforcing the feeling there must be something wrong with him or her, because they are singled out and need to get help, while no intervention happens with the bullies.鈥�

Somewhat surprisingly, D茅nervaud says in her experience, bullying is not tied to specific victim characteristics, such as weight, looks, or social status. However, LGBTQ students are at a significantly greater risk of bullying than their peers.聽

鈥淐ontrary to what most people believe and what I, too, believed at the beginning, there is no 鈥榯ypical鈥� bullying victim. Anybody can be singled out to become the victim of bullying,鈥� she says. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 why focusing on what is perceived as being 鈥榳rong鈥� with the target, such as losing weight or changing their looks, does not work.鈥�

She sees the underlying causes of bullying in the social dynamics at a school. The nerd with glasses bullied in one school might be envied in another community for his smarts.

This is part of why D茅nervaud is convinced parents and bullying victims must not be left alone to solve the issue. 鈥淭hese parents are often desperate and sometimes even sell their home and leave the community they were a part of, uprooting the siblings too, to send their kid to a different school,鈥� she explains. In Switzerland, parents have to send their kids to the public school closest to their zip code unless they can afford the tuition for private schools. 

Because she tried in vain to get public funding and make her service free, D茅nervaud and her two colleagues have to charge either the parents or the schools for the consultations and training. 鈥淚 wish we could offer it for free,鈥� she says.

She sees limits to the No-Blame Approach 鈥渨hen bullying has gone on for too long, sometimes for years. Then the patterns are so ingrained that removing the victim from the situation might be the best solution.鈥� And sometimes, she admits, the approach is poorly implemented. 鈥淭hen we intervene or try the approach again with a different group of students.鈥�

When bullying turns into criminal behavior, she recommends involving the authorities. One of the worst cases in her practice was that of a student who was made drunk and severely sexually abused. 鈥淗e ended up leaving that school because the abuse had also been documented on video and circulated at school, and there was no way for him to go back there,鈥� she says. 鈥淏ut the school then still needs to work with the students who stay there.鈥�

Other approaches that have shown success include the , which involves the entire school; , a method developed at the University of Turku, Finland, with funding from the Ministry of Education and Culture, that claims to have helped ; and .

Virtually all experts agree that it is best to act preventatively or intervene at the first signs of bullying rather than hoping the issue will resolve itself.

In Ben鈥檚 case, the intervention was successful. After a month, his stomach pains stopped, and he looked forward to attending school again. 

About the author: , is a contributing editor at l. An award-winning author and solutions reporter, her recent books include Bouncing Forward: The Art and Science of Cultivating Resilience (Atria).

This story was (U.S.), which shared this story to be republished within the program, supported by the ICFJ, .