LI Anti-Bullying Group Celebrating 6 Years Helping The Community

LONG ISLAND, NY - Six years ago this month, Long Island resident Joe Salamone got the idea to start an anti-bullying organization. While Salamone was bullied himself when he was younger, he got the idea watching someone else being bullied.

While sitting in the waiting room of Good Samaritan Hospital in West Islip, he noticed a special needs individual being openly mocked and harassed by another group of kids that were in the waiting room.

"I sat there and I thought ‘if this type of thing can happen with an audience of people watching, then that means that something needs to be done,’" he told Patch.

After witnessing that incident, he started the Long Island Coalition Against Bullying, which is devoted to combating bullying on Long Island and helping kids and families already dealing with the issue.

"Our mission is to emphasize the importance of bully-free communities on Long Island through education, increased awareness and therapeutic outlook," he said.

The organization offers several services for families, including allowing residents to report incidents of bullying directly to the organization through their website. Once a report is filed, a team member trained in being emotional connected and empathetic listening will respond. The staff is comprised of volunteer pediatric residents of Cohen Children’s Medical Center.

"When you are working directly with families like that, you are listening to what the particular struggle is," he said. "In some cases, there really is a real bullying incident and in other cases sometimes it’s a lack of education on what bullying is and what it is not."

In addition, the organization sends out "smile package," which are care packages tailored to each individual recipient’s hobbies or favorite things for someone who is experiencing bullying.

The non-profit also refers and in some situations even pays for kids and families to seek private counseling.

"We try to make sure that the referral is no further than 15 minutes away from them and then we pay for up to 5 sessions," Salamone explains. "Either we will cover the insurance co-pay up to a certain amount or we cover the private pay rate up to a certain amount if there is no insurance coverage."

Kids can also participate in personal development programs such as martial arts, dance lessons and art class. They also offer tutoring to make sure their grades don’t fall.

The peak time for the LI Coalition Against Bullying is usually at the end of the school year and the beginning of the school year.

"The summer is usually pretty low since kids are not really exposed to each other on a daily basis," he said. "I would say in a month we may get 25 to 50 calls a month."

Last March, the organization received the most requests for 27 new smile package over a 3 day period.

According to Salamone, the group has noticed from the calls they received that much of the bullying that has occurred has been related to social media or finds itself onto social media.

"I think about 90 percent of the people we talk to over the past 6 years reported bullying on social media," he said. "Of course there’s also a mix of the traditional bullying with the physical and verbal aspects, but overwhelmingly everything has a social media connection."

Salamone is no stranger to the bullying issue. He was bullied himself from the 6th grade through his senior year of high school. He made his first attempt at suicide in 9th grade but ended up meeting a teacher who unknowingly thwarted that plan.

"It’s difficult in the moment to know it’s something that is not going to last forever. It’s an isolated time period that you will get past. Again in the situation it’s extremely difficult to be able to see that there is a light at the end of the tunnel because each and every day, it can get worse, but it doesn’t last forever," he said. "Beyond that no matter how long it last or how bad it gets, there is always someone who wants to help. There are parents, teachers, other adults in their lives. If they don’t feel like they can go to any of those people they can always come to people like us. There is always some place to turn to especially in today’s environment where the number of kids who are turning to suicide or cutting, you just need to drive home the point that there are people who want to help them or resources out there that can assist them to get through. It will all go away at some point and there’s always people you can turn to."

All photos courtesy of Joe Salamone