The phone rings at the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). "My daughter is being bullied on Facebook," the distraught caller says when we ask how we may help her. "Other students are insisting she is gay, and say she is stalking the girls in her classes, and now my daughter doesn't want to go to school! What can I do?"

Calls like that are not uncommon at the ADL's Southwest Regional Office. Lately, they've been getting more frequent, and reflecting more frustration.

Cybercommunication is a way of life for all of us, but unfortunately insidious text messages, e-mails, instant messages and posts on Twitter, Facebook and other social networking outlets means cyberbullying is everywhere, too. The odds are that you, a friend or a child of a friend have been bullied, either in person or by text message, e-mail or in a social network. The Cyberbullying Research Center defines cyberbullying as "willful and repeated harm inflicted through the use of computers, cell phones and other electronic devices."

Cyberbullying pervades every facet of our lives, and because it involves speech, this inappropriate form of communication is often protected by the First Amendment. Though a difficult issue, the Anti-Defamation League, never one to shy away from complicated situations, has been in the forefront of fighting bullying and cyberbullying for many years.

On Tuesday, the ADL's Beau and Abe Merfish No Place for Hate Youth Summit will engage more than 450 middle school students and 70 educators from eight school districts and six private schools with a primary goal of helping participants learn to fight cyberbullying. Research by Dr. Sameer Hinduja, co-director of The Cyberbullying Research Center, who will be the keynote speaker at the No Place for Hate summit, has found that 20 percent of the students they surveyed had been victims of cyberbullying at some point in their lives. About the same number admitted to cyberbullying others, and 10 percent of participants in the study admitted they had been both a victim and a perpetrator. Students who had been cyberbullied were one and a half times more likely to have thoughts of suicide.

Despite recent tragic events, there is hope for our children and our community. The ADL has produced a special website designed to fight bullying and cyberbullying: www.adl.org/combatbullying — which includes lesson plans, curricula, bibliographies and recommendations that address bullying and cyberbullying. Recommendations found on the special website include the following.

Schools should:

•Set guidelines for technology use and circulate and update those guidelines periodically.

•Promote ethical standards for online activities and increase awareness of Internet safety strategies.

•Establish safe and confidential reporting mechanisms for cyberbullying incidents.

•Investigate incidents, respond and follow through with appropriate consequences.

Parents should:

•Talk to their children about responsible online behavior and about reporting irresponsible online behavior.

•Monitor amounts of time a child spends online and provide guidance for online activity.

•Supervise computer use and encourage open communication about online messages and activities.

•Report any potential criminal behavior related to cyberbullying to proper authorities, either school officials or law enforcement or both.

Students should:

•Not respond to messages but save them as evidence.

•Report bullying messages to a trusted adult.

•Work with family members to block e-mail addresses and cell phone numbers of people who are sending unwanted messages.

•Ask a trusted adult for help.

The ADL offers anti-bullying and anti-cyberbullying training and speakers for schools and organizations. A copy of the model anti-cyberbullying statute that the ADL drafted, and which Texas legislators plan to introduce in the next legislative session, is available on the special website. Write to your state legislators and ask them to co-sponsor and support this important law enforcement tool.

The ADL's No Place for Hate Initiative, celebrating its 10th anniversary, is now in more than 300 schools in ADL's Southwest Region, helping K-12 campuses create learning environments that reject prejudice and bias, fight bullying and promote respect and acceptance.

Cyberbullying gets worse when we ignore it. It won't go away without a concerted effort. Together, we can stop it. For the sake of our children and our community, we must aggressively and immediately respond to cyberbullying, and we must make sure there are appropriate consequences - before it's too late.

The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is the world's leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry.