Stuart Maddox learned a lot about bullying growing up in a children’s home.

Now a professional boxer, Maddox is working with schools in his native United Kingdom to create guides about bullying and other social issues facing students.

The 38-year-old from Lostock Hall is helping to create a series of “Safety Guides” for a Personal, Social and Health Education curriculum that are designed to promote students’ self-esteem and physical and emotional health, as well as respect for themselves and others, Blog Preston reports.

Titles in the series include “Road awareness, bullying and staying safe online,” “Bullying – victim or bully? Bullying stops with you,” “Child grooming” and “Drugs and alcohol – The facts.”

“Being a victim of bullying as a child due to living in a children’s home, I want to do all that is possible to help prevent this,” Maddox told the news site.

“I got involved with Safety Guide through my good mate Rob Reid as I strongly believe in what they’re trying to achieve with the anti-bullying among other subjects that they are covering.”

Maddox, also known by his “Mad Dog” nickname, is well-known in both boxing and bare-knuckle fighting, but he’s also made headlines for helping students who have been targeted by bullies.

When a video went viral of 12-year-old Daniel Edmondson being attacked by older students, Maddox invited the boy to train at his gym to help restore his confidence.

“I got bullied as a kid but when I started boxing, it changed my life around because I was able to walk away from fights confidently,” Maddox told the Daily Star.

Maddox’s involvement in the anti-bullying effort is a type of corporate sponsorship that plays an important role in character formation in schools.

James Davison Hunter, founder of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, pointed to the role of school practices and connections to the community in The Content of their Character, a summary of research into character education in a variety of different schools.

“How a school is organized, the course structure and classroom practices, the relationship between school and outside civic institutions – all these matter in the moral and civic formation of the child,” Hunter wrote.

The Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtue offers lessons for parents and educators to help students develop the skills and virtues to combat bullying.

A lesson about “The Virtue of Friendliness and Civility,” for example, encourages students to be “sociable and personable companions.”

“Students who understand friendliness and civility “are able to accept and praise the right words and deeds of others, whilst rejecting and resisting those that are harmful to themselves or others,” according to the lesson.

“They are able to be open-minded and tolerant of others, but can challenge in non-confrontational or non-aggressive ways when words and deeds are morally unacceptable.”