Delivering the right messages and tools to help kids thrive.

Susan S. Raisch, founder of Tangled Ball, has over 25 years of experience in public relations and public affairs, specializing in issues that affect the home, education and health. She has worked on projects for a wide variety of television and publishing companies, including HBO, MTV, Sesame Street, Scholastic, History Channel, and Court TV (now TruTV), among many others.

What's A Nice Media Consultant Like You Doing in Bullying Prevention?

I often get asked, "Why bullying?" Most people wonder if I was bullied as a child or if my kids had a problem. Most everyone has had a bully in his or her life, including me, but that wasn't my inspiration.

It was watching CNN with my teenage son as Columbine unfolded. Believe me, the last thing we expected that day was to be watching a wounded boy dangle from the window of his high school in a desperate attempt to save his life. My son Peter's reaction, like most teenagers', was that bullying was somehow responsible.

It was an eye opener. Just the fact that so many kids assumed bullying was to blame was worthy of attention.

Like so many national tragedies, when the experts are no longer called upon to "weigh in" on the subject and the breaking news theme music goes away, so does a little hope. Instead of coming together and using our resources to get to the root of kids' pain, metal detectors were placed at school entrances.

As a media consultant for a variety of networks (I was working at ABC News at the time), I knew that media would be key in engaging the public and putting effective tools in the hands of parents and schools. I also knew that eventually, I would start devoting most of my time and expertise to helping make that happen.

Two years ago, I did just that. The more I learned, the more the issue seemed like a tangled ball - messy and complicated. And like any tangled ball, if you want to unravel it badly enough, you just start with one string at a time. So my daughter, Alice-Kate, said, "then that's what you should name it."

Welcome to Tangled Ball...and a little hope.