“Polifimos”: The pilot program to combat school bullying

This year, upon the return to schools the school community will have a new tool at  their hands, the digital platform “Polifimos.gr” which is starting its pilot application in the 56 school units of the Municipality of Hellinikon – Argyroupoli with the ultimate goal of contributing drastically to the fight against the phenomenon of school bullying.

“Polifimos” was born in July, through the signing of a memorandum of cooperation between the mayor of Ellinikos – Argyroupoli, Yiannis Constantatos, and the Minister of Citizen Protection, Takis Theodorikakos, and is scheduled to receive named complaints from adults regarding incidents of bullying of minors.

Hellenic Police-ELAS will alone have access to complaints. and the scientific staff of the social services of the Municipality will take care of the further actions, with the primary concern being the protection of the minors involved in the incident.

Cooperation with police

“The platform was named “POLIFIMOS” as an acronym for what it represents (Police On Line Information For Inhibiting Misconduct On Schools)”, notes the mayor of Hellinikon – Argyroupoli in “NEA” newspaper. The name is also a reference to legendary cyclops Polyphemus, one of the scourges legendary seafarer Odysseus faced in Homer’s Odyssey.

“With the power of ELAS and Social Municipal Services, the system becomes a giant who “sees what needs to be seen”. The goal is for a student who develops delinquent behavior to be identified and helped, not targeted or stigmatized. However, all children who choose to act delinquently must be made aware that there is a mechanism that easily allows the victim to ask for help,” explains the mayor, adding:

“I mention this, because it must be seen that it is a comprehensive solution for the recording and proper management of all incidents of delinquent behavior against minor students, both those that require the intervention of the Court, but also those that require mediation between parties or assistance from Social services. With this mechanism, every event can be adressed.”

Behind this specific initiative is the heavy shadow of a tragic case, the suicide of a student of the 3rd Junior High School of Argyroupoli, 15-year-old Nikolas, in 2018.

“Perhaps if we had learned then that this child was being severely bullied by his classmates, we would have been able to save his life,” noted the mayor.

As for the operation of the “Polifimos” platform, its designers explain that it is built so that complaints can be made easily and correctly.

First, there is the separation of incidents into out-of-school and in-school incidents, which helps to draw useful conclusions that can lead to future interventions. The fields that need to be filled in the complaint form are, but are not limited to, the school, the date and time of the incident, the name and class of the complaining student and the complainant, a mobile phone number and a description of the complaint.

Also, there are keywords such as “verbal violence”, “physical violence”, “minor injury”, “theft”, “damage to foreign property”, so that over time, categorized statistics can be gathered that can be a reason for targeted actions in schools units or areas where an exacerbation of specific behaviors is observed. The possible outcomes of a complaint are that the examination is completed and no offense is committed, in which case the case is placed on file, the file goes to the Juvenile Prosecutor’s Office or, for milder incidents, the Social Services of the municipality take over the mediation between the two parties to relieve tension.

“We want to give a tool to fight bullying. When we say stop bullying, we speak of preventing it. Next step is to inform Parents’ Associations from which we will ask for cooperation. If this particular model succeeds, it will be a good thing that other municipalities in the country will implement this good practice, and our municipality is paving the way,” says Yiannis Constantatos.