GORHAM — Seventh grade students at Gorham Middle/High School just completed a nine week pilot program that discourages bullying through encouraging empathy and kindness.

Courage to Care, developed by University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension, is designed to help students learn about respect, kindness, courage, personal power, and being a good cyberspace citizen.

Malcolm Smith, UNH extension specialist for family education and policy, spoke to Gorham seventh graders and their parents at a lunch meeting on June 7.

Smith shared his personal experience with bullying during high school and said he only made it through with help from his best friend who was later killed in a school shooting.

He said both experiences, and his presence at 54 school shooting scenes over the years, led him to help develop CtoC.

“We’re trying to use all the research at UNH to help you guys change your schools,” he told the students.

CtoC consists of nine lessons, each focusing on a variety of school and social settings. Lessons start with a video “jolt,” a one-minute clip to draw students into discussion.

Hands-on activities helped students practice what they learned and student “Courage Books” included assignments, character building exercises and inspirational quotes.

Gorham was one of three schools in New Hampshire chosen for the pilot program, along with Wolfeboro and Charleston.

Rick Alleva, UNH Extension field specialist for youth and family, also helped develop the CtoC program. He said testing before and after the program showed increases in empathy.

“All three schools showed significant increases statistically,” he said. “Not just cognitively where they learn it and repeat it back, but in actual experiential empathy.”

Students themselves used words such as “awesome” and “realistic” to describe the video “jolts” performed by 25 New Hampshire teens that started each session of the program.

Students also shared what they learned from the program, on subjects ranging from personal power and how to use it for good or bad, to the simple joys of making someone’s day.

“My favorite part was where we got to learn trust,” student Natalie Harmon said. “We’re already close because we’re a small class, but we learned more trust.”

Guidance counselor Matt Saladino said Gorham will continue the program with next year’s seventh graders.

He said he’s seen a day-to-day difference in the students as a result of the program.

“They get it — they didn’t just practice it in class — they practice it in the hallway,” he said.

For more information about Courage to Care, go to http://extension.unh.edu/courage2care.

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Kristi Garofalo may be reached at kgarofalo@newstote.com.