Saasyan SafeVillage Jessica Hickman Full Interview

Welcome to the Safe Village, a community for everyone who cares about student safety and well-being. My name is Sidney, I'm the CEO of Sacyon, and my guest today is Jessica Hickman. Jessica is the founder of Bulliology.com. She's the author of Bulliologist. She's a speaker and educator. Jessica, welcome to the Safe Village.

Hello, thank you so much for having me today. I'm looking forward to our conversation.

It's great to have you here. Um, bullying is central theme to, um, everything that you do from a speaking, coaching, and, um, consulting and teaching perspective. You work with corporates, but you work with a lot of schools and students. So we're very honored to have you here in the Safe Village where it's all focused around student safety and wellbeing. So I'm going to start with asking Jessica, what's top of mind?

So top of mind for me always is eradicating and providing education awareness around bullying, harassment, and toxic behaviors. So I've been spending a lot of time lately working with schools and helping people move from bystander to upstander and really educating people in the power of community within schools and also working with a lot of teachers, principals, and educators to really create what I call the upstander movement, and that's drive change for the next generation of leaders in our community.

That's really interesting. Sounds like it's quite deep and there's a lot of structure around this. I'd love to unpack a little bit of what that is. So Quite an interesting concept. Tell me more about what it means to go from bystander to upstander.

Yeah, so when I actually launched Bullyology in 2017, I'd really had an experience of suffering bullying myself. So I suffered bullying in the workplace for 3 and a half years. And what I found was the more successful I became, the more I unfortunately suffered bullying. But when I was actually going through that challenging experience, I would look around me and think, How can people just stand by and allow bullying to happen to another individual? And what I really have learned through suffering bullying and also my research for the last 4 years in the bullying space and created my business Bullyology is finding that people become bystanders by default, not because they're bad people, but because they haven't been given the education, the tools, the resources, and the capability to know how to move from bystander to upstander. So when we start to think about the bystander, there's something called the bystander effect, and this was really— this is a psychological theory that the easiest way I can give an example of this is we're driving down the highway and someone has broken down in the car. If there is one or two or more people helping that person, we are more likely to diffuse responsibility and go, "Oh, not our problem, someone else will deal with it." And unfortunately, the more people that witness an incident, whether it's bullying, harassment, cyberbullying, the more as humans we diffuse responsibility and fall into the trap of the bystander effect. So what I've realized in working with workplaces and schools all over the world globally is the fact that unfortunately there will always be bullies or perpetrators and targets, but really I believe that the power in creating culture and change within school and workplace environments particularly school communities, is empowering people to be upstanders and giving them capability to recognize when something is wrong and support people and challenge those behaviors and create custodians of school culture.

Sounds very critical. I mean, we can see this in a family environment. So I've got 3 kids, so it's always interesting to see if one's the target and the other 2, what do they do? Do they step in? Do they not step in? So that's quite fascinating. And then when you expand it out, and I love that analogy of the car broken down on the highway, and if you're likely to keep moving if you see some other people have already stopped and you feel like it's been taken care of, you think it's okay, but you don't know why they've stopped. So that's really interesting. So working with schools, how do you go about implementing some of these things? I mean, teachers are pretty busy, some schools don't have the wellbeing resources. What does your work look like then? And what are some of the examples and outcomes that you've achieved?

Yeah, so look, what I want to do in schools is, and what I am doing in schools is, I can go in, I can tell a compelling keynote. Usually the students are queuing up wanting to tell me their own personal stories of what they've witnessed. But really my aim and my job through my business Bullyology is to empower what I call upstanders or custodians of the culture. So I typically go in and I work with either prefects or school leaders or people that are influencers in the school, and I give them the tools and capabilities to actually develop their skills around being an upstander. And together we co-create magic, I could say to the students, where we build an upstander action plan to actually drive the upstander movement in the school community, which is really peers leading by example, creating peers that trusted, where people feel that they can chat to them about what's going on, but also influence change. So when I step away from working with that school in partnership, I've built that capability within the school that the movement is continuing. They're challenging one another's, you know, even unconscious bias or language or challenging current trends. You know, there's always different things popping up in schools. So really, that's really where my work begins. I also go in and do wellbeing days or workshops or school assemblies, and I work with the students but also work with the teachers. And what I have found working with schools, there is actually a lot of toxic behaviours between staff and also bullying between, you know, teachers. I do a lot of work with bullying in the workplace as well, so it's not just about the students, it's educating the staff really, because the students look up to the staff for learned behaviour. So really, I work with them and help them have the best experience of working within the school community, but also help them support the students to overcome bullying and challenge those behaviours amongst themselves. And again, a lot of my work comes with educating parents. So I have a lot of parents reach out to me, and when your child is suffering bullying, it hurts. You feel this gut, and I'm sure you've got 3 children. If your children or child is going through an adverse time, you feel that. What I find, and I do a lot of education with parents as well, because if someone harms someone you love, you become emotionally charged. And often I find that parents will go down to the school shouting and, you know, come into confrontation with the teachers or become emotionally charged, other parents. So really it's helping parents know how to deal with bullying to get the outcome they want without themselves becoming really irate, because It does happen. So yeah, I work holistically with the whole school community to create this culture of trust, respect, um, and also eliminate the bullying and harassment behaviors by building up standards.

So excited we get to have you here sharing this story and this important mission that you're working on. Um, of course it's a business for you, and as a fellow entrepreneur, I'm excited for you. But a bit like our own business at Sassyen, it's not just a business for business sake, it's actually grounded based on a true mission and a higher purpose. Tell me a little bit more about the backstory. How did you get onto this? And it sounds like there was a point in which you sort of said, I need to commit myself to this.

So look, my background, obviously from my accent, I know I got my citizenship yesterday, so I'm now officially an Aussie, but I'm actually from the UK and my background is in youth and community. So from a young age, from the age of 14, I've been volunteering in youth drop-in centers. Throughout my time in the UK, I developed to run youth homeless and drop-in centers. So I've always had a big passion for social impact and running workshops around bullying, harassment, resilience. I never thought as an adult that I would suffer bullying, actually, until I came to Australia. So I picked up a big role in Australia. I was actually working in Darwin, and it was a people and culture role. And what happened in that role was I was in charge of looking after the culture of the workplace. It was a construction project, so we had fly-in, fly-out workers. Mental health, really, that was my first insight to understand mental health in Australia. So I had a really big opportunity, and throughout my bringing my nurturing background into youth and community into a construction male-dominated environment, I was able to bridge the two and create a holistic workplace where we could speak up about our mental mental health and support one another. But unfortunately, the more successful I became into that role as a female in a male-dominated industry, and not just that, my, my HR manager, my leader, actually, I suffered bullying for 3 and a half years. And it was so interesting because I was on the other side of the world, away from friends and family, doing a job I loved, supporting people, but behind the scenes, really, the more successful I became, as in I started to win awards, was in front of the minister, and nominated for Northern Territory Young Achiever. So for that person, my success really, what I've now learned, really put their nose out of joint. So I looked around me and we were doing amazing work, but I couldn't understand why I was being bullied. And yeah, I stayed in that role for 3 and a half years and pushed through it, but what happened to me was I eventually collapsed in work in June 2017 and really ignored the signs from starting to develop anxiety, diagnosed with PTSD, so post-traumatic stress disorder, from constantly working in a toxic environment. My sleep got affected, my mood, my weight fluctuated, so really ignored all the telltale signs, kept pushing through until eventually in that June 2017 I collapsed at work. So it was a really sobering experience where I realized that the connection to the mind, body, and spirit when we are working in an environment or in a school community or in a, you know, even a relationship or a home environment where there's toxic behaviors over time, yeah, it causes your spirit and your mental, emotional, and physical well-being to deteriorate. So When I was laid in a hospital bed, I kind of had this inner knowing that I was going to use my adversity to my strengths to not only raise awareness but really create cultural change and work with, you know, the people I love—corporates and schools—and start to create this movement so I can support people, create safe, psychologically safe work and school environments so people can flourish and thrive and do their best work. What an inspiring story.

I mean, you know, I think, you know, a number of connection points for me is I too am very open about sharing sort of my backstory in terms of failure and bouncing back and, you know, what it builds in resilience. And I try to embed that both in the family as the leader with my wife as well as at work at SASEAN and the team about, you know, we take these adverse things in life and we use them to bounce back. It's much easier said than done. And so it's so inspiring to hear your story lying on the hospital bed and you're thinking, yeah, this is my calling. And so for being able to so quickly, you know, make that switch and rather than feeling sorry for yourself. And, you know, I've read a number of your blog posts and you do talk about it's okay not to be okay and it's okay to share that so that, you know, I'm not taking away from that. I'm talking about the bit where you deal with that and then you're ready to take the next step. And what a courageous step. So awesome. Good work. Yeah.

And look, people think the healing journey is still continuing. It doesn't happen overnight. When I'm sharing keynotes and working at schools, and I'm not sure if I've got it now, but I usually wear a top like this and I show people because one of the things which was an outcome of the trauma was my body remembers. So when I share my story, I sometimes break out in a rash or I get really hot. So I let people know that bullying is toxic. We need to create safe, inclusive environments, but we also need to understand that removing the bully or walking away from that environment just doesn't make it end there. We need to support people with their mental health and their wellbeing to move forward from that experience.

Thank you for being so open and sharing that. All good. Thinking about our audience that listens to the Safe Village content and the community, so we've got a mix of parents, wellbeing leaders, some students might be getting this shared, I'm not sure, but certainly the parents and the school leadership. So what are some little tidbits we can leave them today with in terms of what can they do at home? What could I as a parent do at home to encourage my kids to go from being a bystander to an upstander? And what is it a school leadership could do, whether it's just a teacher in the classroom with a, with a lesson because they've been inspired by this conversation, or it's something more programmatic before they come and, you know, engage with you on your formal programs?

Yeah, so look, typically it's all about recognizing where we currently are and having the conversation. So I think typically as a parent at home, you start to have the conversation with your youths and your children to be having conversations around what behaviors are acceptable and what are not. And also how to actually— I think trust is a big thing that can be built at home, and it's really building that trust that if they go through an experience that they feel confident as a parent that you're not going to go straight down the school or, you know, blow up. Because every time when I speak to youths, I say, oh, you know, did you not feel comfortable to tell your parents? They said, oh well, I knew that they'd come down the school and may got worse because they may shout. And so really it's having that conversation about how you would approach it. I would listen to you, I would ask you what would be the best solution for me to support you. And really it's creating that partnership approach with your child to make them feel comfortable to speak up. And also for teachers, it's the same. It's really about relationships and having a trusted person, and really sometimes that is a peer within the school group. So what we're seeing through my programmes now is— I've just been working with one of the local schools here, and I've been working with a group of their Prefects, and they've developed Upstander programmes. They've created short films, they've created posters, but also I developed a train-the-trainer program where when we rolled out, we did 2.5-hour workshop on wellbeing, but they co-presented with me. So they're building those extra skills. But what really happened with that was there was trust built with the year group below them. And we had 130 students. And I said, "I can stick around for lots of questions and chat to you, but also, you know, these are your peer groups, these are your upstanders." And then for an hour after, it was just conversation where they were sitting one-on-one or with groups of students and all these ideas were coming about, you know, what they could do or change. So really it's about creating a trusted peer network where they can actually speak up and have trust. Fantastic. But also on my bullyology.com website, I've got a whole resource hub with parents' fact sheets, how to approach conversation with kids, tweens, teens, parents, where to get support, helplines, and also, as you mentioned, I got podcasts and blogs So hopefully there'll be something there that really can get into the nitty-gritty of step-by-step guides for parents and teachers. Fantastic.

We'll definitely share that on the show notes. So wherever we post this. So my final question is, what is it that people don't really know or appreciate about your mission and the work that you do that if they did would just make it easier all around? Um, have you thought about that?

Yeah, okay, so I think the first thing that comes to mind when you said that, um, so people, um, as you know, a fellow entrepreneur or someone that's got a certain level of success, and this could be for a student or a parent, when you actually, um, have a certain level of success, uh, people think that they only see the outward, um, of that success, but really, um, Bullyology, um, has been late nights, knocking on doors, many no's, behind the scenes. So really, I think that when you see someone with a certain level of success, maybe, you know, this can be for students as well, someone that's good at sport or, you know, got great grades, people— there's a thing in Australia called the tall poppy syndrome. And really, people kind of want to cut people down for their success. So I think that a lot of people that outwardly come into my world now have not seen the grind behind creating Bullyology and their healing process, but also, you know, I want a lot of corporates to understand the impact of a toxic culture and business leaders and school principals, because what often happens is with regards to bullying harassment, it goes on to the too hard pile or swept under the carpet, and then I have a lot of clients call me very reactive where there's severe bullying in the school community or workplace, or some teachers off on long-term leave because of something that happened with, you know, a peer or colleague. So really, let's be proactive. Let's start to build up Sanders. Let's start to build custodians of culture so we don't have to end up in the red zone, which is reactive, where psychological, emotional, and physical harm is done. So, um, and I think Australia, you know, we've got a long way to go. We see it in the media with the bullying. And when I created Bullyology, it was still the elephant in the room. And what I'm starting to see over time of the last 4 years with Black Lives Matter, the Me Too movement, you know, the Brittany Higgins, a lot of stuff that's going on now is bringing these toxic behaviors into mainstream media, which like, it's unfortunate that we need to be having these conversations, but as a leader in this space or business owner, it's actually a refreshing change where we're actually taking the lid off and actually having to have these conversations. So I think we're in this interesting time now where, again, the upstander movement is starting to swirl, and it's going to take a generation of change to stamp out some of the unconscious bias, racist language, toxic language, but again, I'm a woman on a mission. So with amazing school partnerships and workplace, I think that we can actually together create change for the next generation of leaders that are going to lead our country and our organizations. And there are, you know, the millennials and the Gen Zs.

Fantastic. You're doing a great job in leading us. So thank you for the work that you do, and thank you for being with us here on the SAFE Village. I took a lot of takeaways. I think And then I'm sure our audience will as well. But I think that the key things that stood out for me were, you know, building, firstly, you know, recognizing this happens and we can't put our head in the sand. So, and I agree with you, there's a rising tide now. There's too many things now that have started that, you know, if we can use Malcolm Gladwell terminology, the tipping point, right? So it's tipped. And through the work, like people yourselves and our community here, I think You know, bullying, self-harm, you know, being in a state of fear is just not acceptable. We're way too woken up and smart to live our lives that way. So I think the work that you do is— Yeah. The other key takeaway, which is really important, is that building that trust with the students or your children, that they should be able to come and talk to you and you're not going to overreact. And I think that's a really important aspect because You know, often people don't go to someone in the workplace or at home to their leaders because they're worried like, we're going to get an overreaction, they're going to embarrass me, you know, dad's going to come to school, mom's going to come to school, and so on. So I think that, that's a really interesting point. And then the other part that I loved about it is you're not trying to fix anything on your own. Your whole framework and methodology is a co-creation and an absolute ownership of accountability where you're engaging not only the school you know, adults, but the prefects and the emerging leaders in the school. And I think that's genius. So, you know, fantastic work there. Is there any question that I didn't ask that I should have asked today?

No, I think we've covered everything. And it's always nice, you know, when you're on a mission to hear them things back. So I appreciate it, and I'm looking forward to see the amazing work that you and your team do. And I think that together we can create change.

Jessica Hickman, thank you for being on the SAFE Village. Thank you.