Fried was a member of the Dance Ensemble of the
St. Louis Municipal Opera from 1949 through 1951. She also appeared in a party scene in Kansas City native Robert Altman's 1957 film
The Delinquents. Fried worked as a dance therapist for twenty years, and from 1961 to 1978, Fried was a volunteer dance and drama therapist at Osawatomie State Hospital in Kansas. In 1970 was appointed to President Richard Nixon's
Task Force on the Mentally Handicapped. She was a consultant to the
National Institute of Mental Health as well as the
Center for Advanced Study and Continuing Education in Mental Health. Fried's work with
Dr. Karl Menninger led her to found STOP Violence in 1982, an organization that developed a program called
Reaching Out From Within. This monthly program trained volunteers to teach prison inmates to change their violent language, actions and thoughts. As of 2004, it ran ten programs in seven Kansas Correctional facilities. The program has been effective, recording much lower recidivism rates among program participants than non-participating inmates. From a
Huffington Post profile of Fried and Reaching Out From Within:—
Abuse prevention work Fried draws upon her dance therapy experience in her abuse prevention program, helping teach body awareness and how to adjust to others. Fried's seven "prevention principles" were defined in her book
Bullies and Victims, and given the acronym SCRAPES: •
Self-esteem and skill enrichment •
Conflict resolution and mediation skills •
Respect for differences •
Anger management and assertiveness training •
Problem solving skills •
Empathy training •
Sexuality awareness training. Her books are intended for parents of children who have been bullied as well as those whose children may be bullies. She and her co-authors attempt to offer practical suggestions for minimizing peer abuse, to teach about the harm caused by gossip and name-calling and to prevent an escalation to violence. In 2002, Fried founded BullySafeUSA, which has enabled her to work with more than 90,000 students, educators, councilors, administrators and parents in 36 states Additionally, she and her organization are working to help reduce cyber-bullying on social networking sites and web pages. ==Death==