Ditch the Label

Ditch the Label is a UK anti-bullying charity that supports young people who are targeted because of their appearance, interests, sexuality, income, religion, disability, or other parts of identity. It works with schools, colleges, and youth audiences, offering practical support, awareness work, and campaigns that challenge bullying in everyday settings and online.

What does Ditch the Label do?

Ditch the Label exists to reduce bullying and its effects, especially among children and young people. Its work spans education, support, and advocacy: it speaks to schools and colleges, produces guidance for staff and students, and creates public-facing campaigns around bullying, identity, and mental health. The charity treats bullying as more than name-calling. It frames it as behaviour shaped by power, exclusion, and prejudice.

That matters because bullying rarely arrives in one neat form. It can involve rumours, online harassment, social exclusion, abuse about body size or clothes, and attacks on family background, faith, gender expression, sexuality, or disability. Ditch the Label’s material tends to connect those experiences to broader social patterns rather than treating them as isolated incidents.

Where did it come from?

The organisation grew from the experience of its founder, Liam Hackett, who was bullied himself and later turned that experience into a project. The idea was conceived in 2006, then developed into a formal organisation after Hackett graduated from the University of Sussex in 2012. That origin story gives the charity a personal starting point, but the organisation has since become broader than one person’s experience.

Its UK base also shapes its work. Ditch the Label operates in a school and youth-services landscape where anti-bullying charities often fill gaps between policy, pastoral care, and peer culture. It sits alongside safeguarding work, but it is distinct in its focus on identity-based bullying and the social pressures that build around image, status, and belonging.

How does it work in practice?

In practice, Ditch the Label appears through workshops, teaching resources, surveys, advice content, and campaigns. A school may use its materials to open discussion about stereotypes, online abuse, or the language students use to police each other’s appearance. The charity also publishes research and statistics that help frame bullying as a measurable social issue, not only a private distress.

Because its audience includes young people, much of its communication is direct and accessible. It tends to use plain language, short-form advice, and familiar examples drawn from school life and social media. That makes the organisation useful in visual culture contexts, where image, self-presentation, and peer judgement are tightly linked. Articles about Instagram, fashion, or self-branding often mention Ditch the Label because those are spaces where appearance-based bullying can intensify.

Why does it matter?

Ditch the Label matters because it treats bullying as a structural and cultural problem rather than an inevitable part of growing up. That framing shifts attention away from blaming the target and toward changing group behaviour, institutional responses, and the messages young people absorb about normality and difference. It also gives schools and families a vocabulary for discussing harm that is often minimised or ignored.

Its relevance extends beyond classrooms. Bullying now travels easily across platforms, and the same social pressures that shape school life also shape online identity. For a publication concerned with how things are made, that includes how reputations, images, and social hierarchies are produced. Ditch the Label addresses the conditions under which those hierarchies become abusive.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Ditch the Label only for schools?

No. Schools and colleges are a major part of its work, but the charity also speaks to young people more broadly and produces public resources. Its focus includes family life, online behaviour, and the wider culture around youth identity.

What kind of bullying does it focus on?

It covers bullying tied to appearance, interests, sexuality, household income, religion, disability, and other identity markers. It also addresses cyberbullying and social exclusion, which often overlap with face-to-face abuse. The charity’s emphasis is on bullying that is repeated, targeted, and shaped by power.

Who founded it?

Liam Hackett conceived the idea in 2006 and later developed the organisation after graduating from the University of Sussex in 2012. He is the current managing director. His own experience of bullying influenced the charity’s early direction.