About six years ago, Bobby Folden’s nephew hanged himself.
The boy was 10 years old, and in the note he left behind, he described feeling picked on and bullied by kids at his school.
Folden’s family in Knox County was close, he said. But even in a tight-knit family, his nephew felt alone.
“He had nowhere else to turn,” Folden said.
Folden, a longtime mental-health professional, thought for years about how he could have helped to prevent his nephew’s death.
About a month ago, he decided to try to help other children who feel bullied at school, starting a hot line he named A Friend to Talk To. It is a rare grass-roots resource in a region where local programs for bullied kids often have been cut, if they ever existed.
All of Ohio’s school districts have policies prohibiting bullying, and a school might create a program to help stop students from picking on each other, but there usually is no districtwide programming to prevent bullying.
Few places to turn for bullied children (Ohio)
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