In 2006, the PACER Center-Champions for Children with Disabilities founded PACER’s National Bullying Prevention Center. Through various partnerships with national parent organizations, PACER was able to provide schools, parents, and students with an abundance of resources to help bring awareness to how bullying has become widespread among children 8-17 years old. This campaign was started to help shift the original thinking that bullying was a “childhood rite of passage” and that it helped to “make kids tougher”.
According to 10 studies across the United States, children with disabilities were two to three times more likely to be bullied than their nondisabled peers because they may find it hard to “read” social signs. Teachers, parents, and caregivers must take action to help their child from being bullied and prevent this from happening again.
(Disabilities: Insights from Across Fields and Around the World; Marshall, Kendall, Banks & Gover (Eds.), 2009.)