A tragic event spurred the creation of the nonprofit organization Stand for the Silent. In 2010, news reports began circulating about an 11-year-old boy named Ty Field-Smalley who had taken his own life after being suspended from his school for retaliating against a bully who had been tormenting him for several years. Upon hearing about this terrible occurrence, a group of sympathetic high school students in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma had the bright idea to create an organization to prevent such a thing from ever happening again. Thus, Stand for the Silent was born.
But in those early days, a central question hung in the air—how best to accomplish this lofty goal? The organization’s first initiative was for Ty’s grieving parents, Kirk and Laura, to travel to schools throughout the country and share their son’s story in order to educate and provide tools that might prevent such a tragedy from happening to other children, families, and communities.
That first initiative has had tremendous success. The Smalleys traveled to over 6,025 schools and spoke to 4.5 million students, spreading their message of empathy and awareness. Indeed, the organization was so successful and its message so resonant that on March 10, 2011—only a year after its inception—Kirk and Laura were flown to Washington D.C. to meet President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama ahead of the first-ever White House conference on bullying.
In the years since the organization’s mandate has expanded significantly. This includes an ambitious new program of fostering student-led chapters in schools across the country, with the ultimate goal of combating bullying in all its forms by building empathy and understanding among peers.
Forming a chapter of Stand for the Silent is easy. If a group of caring, compassionate, and enthusiastic students wants to start one, they simply have to follow the steps on the organization’s official website, starting with downloading a helpful packet of information. Founding members of the new chapter then need to sign pledge cards and contact Stand for the Silent’s Board of Directors via email so that new chapter status can be granted. An adult sponsor is also required, but this can be any adult from the community—not necessarily an employee of the school. Once chapter status is granted, an election is held to choose officers, including a President, Vice-President, Secretary, and Treasurer. The new chapter must then decide upon a unique name and mission statement to describe their goals, and then put in place a schedule for meetings.
These initial logistics can be accomplished rather quickly. The rewarding work comes as meetings turn into planned initiatives, with messages being honed and plans of action for anti-bullying strategies being developed. Some examples of these for past Stand for the Silent Chapters include planning fundraisers, facilitating peer mediation groups, and developing skits or even full-length plays to be performed in local schools. Social events sponsored by Stand for the Silent, along with social media and poster campaigns, have proven effective as well. Many chapters will build Stand for the Silent-themed floats for Homecoming or other parades in the community.
For any school that welcomes a Stand for the Silent chapter, there are legitimate impacts that are usually positive, cumulative, and undeniable. The collective efforts of the chapter members to build empathy and spread awareness about the harm caused by bullying have had incalculable benefits in reducing the pain and anguish, as well as the sense of isolation, for those students who are actively suffering from the effects of bullying. The chapters create allies for those who need them most.
The message of Stand for the Silent continues to resonate: No child needs to suffer in silence because of bullying. Founding a local chapter of Stand for the Silent is one of the best ways to spread this message.
