Cyberbullying has become an increasing community concern and will be the focus of a Sept. 24 program featuring a UW-Eau Claire expert on the topic and the superintendent of the Eau Claire Area School District.
The free program is scheduled to run from 5 to 7 p.m. in the Capernaum Room at Grace Lutheran Communities, 206 N. Willson Dr. in Altoona.
It is being presented under the auspices of the Women’s Giving Circle (WGC) of the Eau Claire Community Foundation. The lead sponsor is People’s Bank Midwest and Grace Lutheran Communities is a secondary sponsor.
The speakers will be Justin Patchin, co-director of the Cyberbullying Research Center and a professor of Criminal Justice at UW-EC, and Mary Ann Hardebeck, the Eau Claire school superintendent. The program’s aim is to educate the audience on how to prevent and respond to adolescent misuses of technology and to explain how this affects children, according to a press release from the Women’s Giving Circle.
That organization is accepting donations to help support a cyberbullying prevention program. The WGC has nearly 300 members, and pools their donations to fund grants to nonprofit organizations that work to enhance the well-being of local women and children. It has distributed over $227,000 in grants since its founding in 2006.