October is Stop Cyberbullying Month at Build-A-Bear Workshop!

As I’m sure you’re aware, cyberbullying is the use of digital technology as a weapon by one minor to hurt another minor, and it is a growing problem. The Build-A-Bear Workshop online safety program is geared towards children and parents and has been developed in association with leading cyber safety expert Parry Aftab, executive director and founder of WiredSafety.org, the world’s largest cyber safety group that aims to increase online safety awareness by providing families with resources and guidelines.

Build-A-Bear Workshop wants to be part of the solution to stop cyberbullying and to help ensure that its online virtual world, buildabearville.com, is as safe as it can be.  The Build-A-Bear Workshop company-wide Stop Cyberbullying program is comprised of several elements:

Online

• Safety tips for kids (such as Stop, Block and Tell), as well as resources and recommendations for parents are provided online at Build-A-Bearville.
• WiredSafety Pledge — Citizens of Build-A-Bearville can take the pledge and receive a virtual safety sash for their avatars.
• During October Build-A-Bearvillee is featuring a meter in Town Square that counts the number of “citizens” that click on the Safety Pledge.  When the meter is full, all citizens of the virtual world receive a unique Stop, Block and Tell move for their avatars.

In Store

• A map of Build-A-Bearville and the online Safety Pledge will be available to all Guests.
• ChloeRocks™, the star of The Build-A-Bearville Chloe Show, is featured in Online Safety Public Service Announcements in store.

“Build-A-Bear Workshop is helping to create awareness for this important safety messaging for kids; we are committed to the goal of making our virtual world a safe and fun extension of the Build-A-Bear Workshop in-store experience with enhanced games, imagination, education and learning,” said Dave Finnegan, chief information and logistics bear of Build-A-Bear Workshop. “We are proud to be one of the first recipients of the WireSafety.org Socially Safe Seal for Build-A-Bearville and we will continue to engage in a dialogue with parents, technology experts and industry organizations to design safe online spaces for kids on the web.”