TORONTO — Paul Frias has been working in Toronto as a police officer for more than a decade. Yet, his contributions to the community go far beyond enforcing laws and fighting crime.
Since 2012, Frias has delivered more than 30 anti-bullying presentations in schools across 33 Division.
“We want schools to be a safe place for them,” said Annie Slater, vice principal at Don Valley Junior High School.
“We want kids to grow not just academically, but also their mental well being.”
Frias recently gave a lecture at Don Valley Junior High School on a topic he is all too familiar with.
“I was very shy, very quiet growing up, I had a hard time making friends,” he said.
“I wore braces, I wore glasses and was I guess, an easy target, someone that other people felt that they could pick on and I would never fight back.”
Now Frias is fighting back, turning his painful experiences into powerful teaching tools and taking every opportunity to put an end to the pain felt by victims of bullying, once and for all.
“There’s a lot of bullying presentations that go school to school to school, but that’s definitely the best I’ve seen,” said Zoë Topshee, a Grade 7 student at Don Valley Junior High. “It’s very, very personal.”
The presentations have caused hundreds of young people to come forward to share their own personal stories and experiences, and Frias is always there to guide them in the right direction in terms of support from counselors, teachers or investigators.
Comments