As National Bullying Prevention Awareness Month comes to a close, experts are reminding Virginians to be aware of the patterns within bullying.

One in five students reports being bullied, and one in six has been cyberbullied, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Virginia has anti-bullying laws at schools, but they don't apply to incidents off-campus, which often is where cyberbullying takes place.

Jan Helson, co-founder of Global Game Changers Children's Education Initiative Inc., a nonprofit children's education initiative focused on social-emotional learning, said building confidence and empathy are keys in helping to prevent bullying.

"If you build a child's core, where they feel confident about themselves and who they are, and have empathy for others," she said, "then it helps to avoid bullying in the first place."

In the 2019 Virginia Youth Survey, almost 23% of high-school students reported having been bullied, often for their race or secual orientation. Research has found these students are at higher risk for depression, anxiety and sleep problems, lower academic achievement and higher dropout rates.

According to the CDC, almost 14% of public schools report that bullying occurs daily or at least once a week. Studies show anti-bullying programs decrease bullying by 20%. But no matter the approach, Helson said, she finds it's important that kids remain in dialogue with parents and teachers.

"Whether it's a teacher communicating with students, or whether it's a parent communicating, it's to really stress the importance of opening up that dialogue, and providing your child a safe space and looking for those signs," she said, "whether they are the victim or the bully, and parents have to be open minded to both sides of that."

Last year, the STOP Bullying Act was introduced in the U.S. House. It would require all states to establish a task force to study, address and reduce bullying in elementary and secondary schools. The bill has been stuck in committee. It has no sponsors among the Virginia delegation.

Helson said a bully's own insecurities are often the root cause of their actions. She said she thinks considering the inner life of a bully can be insightful.

"Also, the bully. What is it about their background? I think having children understand and have empathy that maybe that bully has something going on in their life that they have no control over," she said. "It's a way of them feeling like they have control of something, making them feel bigger than others."

Accepting a bully's behavior isn't the same as empathizing with them, Helson said. It can provide a means for potentially breaking down barriers with a bully.

It can be challenging for parents and caregivers to shield their children from bigotry and hatred online, but there are a few tips they can follow.

Lindsay Schubiner, Momentum program director at the Western States Center, said the work is especially crucial because white nationalist groups are using the internet to recruit people.

She pointed out young people are developing identities and ideas in relationship to everything around them, including what they see and hear online.

"As hate violence and threats to democracy continue and bigotry and conspiracy theories reach further into the mainstream, young people see that, and it has an impact," Schubiner asserted. "It's really important for parents and caregivers to provide an open space to critically examine what all of that means to them and to their future and to their values."

About 45% of middle and high school students said they have been the victim of cyberbullying, according to a survey from the Cyberbullying Research Center. The survey also showed cyberbullying has been increasing over the past decade.

Schubiner stressed vigilance is the first key to ensuring kids are staying safe online. She noted for example, hate groups use jokes minimizing violence, scapegoating or straw man arguments to manipulate people online, tactics she said both kids and parents need to be aware of.

"Helping them to recognize the kinds of strategies that are intended to influence them can be a really powerful way to push back against this," Schubiner emphasized.

Schubiner encouraged parents and caregivers to listen openly and non-judgmentally to their kids' about their online experiences. She cautioned cutting off access to friends or to the internet can backfire because many white nationalists manipulate followers into seeing it as evidence of "political correctness" and attempts to curb free speech.

Schubiner added a better approach is to enlist people your child trusts.

"Really lean on relationships and relationships that the young person has with either older peers or other adults who share inclusive and equitable values," Schubiner recommended.

A grim reminder is out - that Arizona could be doing more to keep its youngest residents safe and healthy.

The state's 29th annual Child Fatality Report says a total of 863 Arizona children died last year - and almost half of those deaths were considered preventable.

They include fatalities from abuse and neglect, COVID-19, drowning, firearm injuries - as well as substance-related causes, and sudden unexpected infant deaths. And all increased last year compared to 2020.

Dr. Mary Rimsza - the medical director of the Child Fatality Review program of the Arizona Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics and chair of the review team - said it's unusual to see such a substantial increase, but this tragic information is useful.

"Frankly," said Rimsza, "a major purpose of us doing this report is to identify preventable deaths and to make recommendations on how future deaths can be prevented. That is our mission."

The report says Arizona's child mortality rate increased 4.7% from 2020 to 2021, and it's higher among boys than among girls.

In 2021, 31 children's deaths were attributed to COVID-19, compared to 12 in 2020.

Another category with an alarming increase was drowning - the rate jumped 108%. And in substance-related deaths, poisoning was the leading factor.

Of the 49 child poisoning fatalities Rimsza said 46 were opiate overdoses, and fentanyl was responsible for 44 of them.

"The deaths due to fentanyl and other opiate overdoses, most all the opiate deaths in children were due to fentanyl," said Rimsza. "It is a huge problem in our state. It is a very tragic event - oftentimes, it could be the first time a young person tried a drug."

Rimsza added that the message to Arizona families is that there are many steps families can take to prevent a tragedy - from ensuring safe sleep environments for infants, to making sure pool areas are supervised and well fenced, to storing firearms safely and securely.

The report contains a full list of recommendations.

In just two months, it should be easier for providers of children's services in Pennsylvania's child-welfare and foster-care system to get the liability insurance they need. Governor Tom Wolf signed a bill into law that outlines who takes responsibility when an incident or accident occurs in the child-welfare system.

Some counties' contracts require the private children's service provider to take full responsibility, even when they are not at fault.

Samea Kim, vice president for Legal & Public Affairs at the Pennsylvania Council of Children, Youth & Family Services said as a result, the private providers have had trouble getting affordable, quality liability coverage - and this should make it easier for them to do so.

"This bill would allow the agency to take ownership of something that may have come up, if it was within the scope of what they did. Otherwise, if it was something related to the county, then the county would be able to take responsibility for their own actions," Kim said.

Kim added under the current system, providers were making insurance payouts even in cases when they were not at fault, because the county contract requires the provider to take liability. The new law goes into effect February 1. There are nearly 15,000 children in Pennsylvania's child-welfare system.

Laura Maines, CEO of Every Child, Inc., a nonprofit adoption and foster care organization based in Pittsburgh, said groups like hers have faced limited liability insurance coverage options and high premium costs, driven in part by the contracts that require private providers to indemnify government agencies in any situation. So, they advocated for House Bill 2214.

"This is about fairness," Maines said. "This is about accountability. This is really about partnership and service continuity. And so, what [HB] 2214 does is it says if there is any language in a public foster care contract or child welfare contract that seeks to transfer 100% of the risk to the private agency, it's unenforceable."

Maines added professional liability insurance protects the agency if something happens to a child and there is a claim brought against their agency.