Interview with Enrique Pérez-Castillo, from the Association for the Prevention of Bullying in Spain (AEPAE)

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Twenty years ago, a martial arts teacher began receiving a flood of children who were victims of bullying in his classes and he could see how helpless they were. They all needed tools to manage what they were experiencing, so Enrique realized that he could give them these tools, not only on a physical level, but also mentally through his discipline. This is how AEPAE was founded together with Goyo, Enrique's friend and drama teacher at the Royal School of Dramatic Arts in Madrid, and Miguel, responsible for the psychological area of ​​the project. The three of them together were responsible over the years for establishing themselves in more than 17 locations and creating and implementing a national action plan in schools and educational centers, with the aim of finally giving all these tools and support to students, parents and teachers, all of them active actors in any situation of bullying. In this interview, Enrique has told us more about how the organization works, its objectives and goals and its vision on Social Networks and bullying.


What is your working methodology?
19 years ago, we did a very interesting report on Telecinco about a course canadian ceo email database we taught, and from then on we started receiving many requests to provide training for families, teachers, etc. As a result of this event, we began to put together what is now the National Plan. This is a comprehensive plan in which we work with the victims, but we also do prevention and give training to students, teachers and families. We measure bullying with a psychometric test that is very precise, the BAE test, and we even have a specific course for bullies. This part is something very new because it is like the “hot potato” that no one wants to take on. Today it is very difficult to address how to re-educate children who are still minors, that is, whatever they do they are “unaccountable ”. There is a lot of overprotection towards them, both by families and schools, and there are children who at 11 years old or even at 12 or 13 already have a fairly violent profile. Since no one puts a stop to it, they end up mistreating one or two people, then the teacher as well, and at home as well. It was an area that was quite unexplored and that we addressed in the National Plan.

The National Plan, how is it applied?
At the request of the centre. It is not a public plan, it is a plan that is born from AEPAE and that today already has a huge academic support: we have agreements with ten universities, even from abroad. The centres themselves or even the AMPAS of the centres request it. A study of the centre is carried out and a calculation of the costs is made, because about 50 hours of training are given in an average school. The objective is to raise awareness, train observers and also families and teachers. We also work with victims, with bullies and give a series of tools to use in the classroom to the centre so that the tutor can implement it as reinforcement. All of that is the National Plan. So in broad strokes.