Background Information

Our vision is of a respecting, just, equal and inclusive Scotland in which all children and young people can live free from bullying and harassment and are encouraged to reach their full potential. Our work is driven by a focus on children’s rights.

respectme is funded by the Scottish Government and is managed by SAMH (Scottish Association for Mental Health) in partnership with LGBT Youth Scotland. It’s important to frame our work in relation to the emotional health and wellbeing of children and young people and underline our values of respect, equality and inclusion underpin every aspect of our work.

Don’t label children 
In planning your film, if you’re using a script, pay attention to the language you choose. Some language is unhelpful and can even unintentionally make the problem worse. For example, try not to use labelling language like calling children ‘bullies’ or ‘bully’. Likewise, avoid using the term ‘victim’ as it can disempower and may have a lifelong impact on the person experiencing bullying. Bullying behaviour is something we do, it isn’t who we are.

What do we mean by bullying?
So what is bullying? Here’s respectme’s Director, Katie Ferguson, explaining how we define bullying in Scotland.

This approach should be reflected in each submitted film, failure to do so could result in the film entry being void.