A NEW partnership between Durham County Council and a national charity is to help keep young people safe from bullying.

The county council’s Anti-Bullying Service (ABS) is teaming up with Kidscape for the first time to bring assertiveness training to children in the county.

Vulnerable children throughout the UK currently have to go to Kidscape in London to take part in a one-day Zap programme, which shows them new ways to deal with bullying.

This includes confidence building, verbal assertiveness and body language techniques, to stop them being targeted in the future.

Now, in a pilot project funded and evaluated by the Department for Children Schools and Families (DCSF), staff from the (ABS) are to be trained by Kidscape to work with selected pupils from January 2009.

After taking part in Zap, young people should have more ways to deal with conflict, have enhanced self-esteem and be more active in their school and wider community.

Around 80 per cent of those who have taken part say they no longer get bullied.

ABS acting team manager Tom Cunningham said: "The ABS has achieved a high profile through its work in dealing with bullying and was keen to take part in the Zap programme,".

"Groups of around 20 young people from different schools will benefit from the training with information fed back to both Kidscape and the DCSF."

He added: "Now we can provide the training here in County Durham to help young people learn new ways of dealing with bullying and keeping safe."

Linda Frost from Kidscape said: "We are delighted to have the opportunity to work with such a positive and forward-looking local authority as Durham, and we are sure our partnership with Tom Cunningham’s team will be an example of excellent practice that many other areas of the country will wish to follow."

So far, more than 70 schools and other establishments have achieved the anti-bullying accreditation kite mark which is awarded annually to ensure they maintain a consistent approach to anti-bullying.