The Ophelia Project is a non-profit, volunteer organization located in Pennsylvania. This project provides education and intervention programs that address problems that teens today are facing in schools, home or at other teen functions. Some goals for the project include: creating multiple levels of mentoring relationships between adults and young people, fostering dialogue with young people so we can hear their voices and advocate for their needs, and collaborating with schools in creating a safe social climate for all children.

At Wheeler Middle School, we are focusing on creating an anti-bullying program that will focus on the following concepts: relational aggression and Creating a Safe Social Climate (CASS). To complete these tasks, we will create a student task force and a parent task force. The student task force will meet once a week, during school hours to discuss issues that teens in our building are facing. The students will come up with solutions to these problems and provide leadership for our school. The parent task force will provide educational materials for parents about relational aggression that can be used to help raise their children. The group will also focus on assisting parents in the process of acknowledging challenges our children face today, recognizing aggression, and discussing healthy decision making relative to peer aggression. The parent task force will meet once a month to discuss these issues as well as session goals, books or other research related to teen aggression, various discussion topics/questions, and suggestions or encouragement for discussing/dealing with relational aggression in your child’s life.

We are proud to be the second school in Indiana to adopt this program. This program is “dedicated to creating a culture that is emotionally, physically, and socially safe, where children are respected and nurtured” (Ophelia Project-All the RAGE 3).