A US teenager suspended from school for creating a fictional character who committed suicide to lift awareness of bullying should have been commended.

That is the view of anti-bullying expert, Adjunct Professor Ken Rigby, from the University of South Australia.

New York student Jessica Barba, 15, created a Facebook page and a YouTube video under a fictitious name to raise awareness of the problem of bullying in schools.

The video tells the story of Hailey, "a happy 12 year old" with "perfect grades", who had a deep dark secret. She was abused by her father and bullied by girls at her school.

When her best friend moved away, Hailey was alone. To keep in touch, she created a Facebook page, which attracted pages and pages of spiteful comment.

"Nobody cared so Hailey was left to do the unmentionable ... Hailey Bennett committed suicide May 14th 10:37pm," reads the subtitles on the video.

The video, which is clunkily acted by Jessica and her friends, was too real for some people.

And the accompanying Facebook updates, including where the fictional Hailey wrote "I wanna be dead" alarmed one parent so much she called emergency services.

Ms Barba was subsequently suspended by her school.

But Professor Rigby believes Ms Barba should be "commended rather than blamed".

"The school was inept and handled the situation badly," he said.

Ms Barba said she tried to explain what she was doing to school authorities, but they would not listen.

Professor Rigby, author of Children and Bullying: How Parents and Educators Can Reduce Bullying at School, said this isn't unusual.

He said he knew of many cases where teenagers' efforts to fight bullying have been dismissed or the children told to go away.

He said a "very earnest" 16-year-old boy had tried to conduct a survey on bullying at his school, and the school said "go away".

Some schools were very resistant to the idea of children getting involved while others welcomed them, he said.

Ms Barba told the Today Show that she worked on the project (the video and Facebook account) for two days to make sure it had "a good message in it".

She said that when she was suspended "I started hysterically crying, I couldn't believe I was getting in trouble for something that I worked so hard on.

"The only intent of it was good. They'd been teaching us since I was in kindergarten to treat people as they'd treat you and not to bully."

Jessica's father, Michael, said he was very proud of what she had done.

"This is a great project," he told the Today Show. "There are thousands of people that love it, and it can be fixed. This can be fixed."

Ms Barba's fictional character was also abused by her father, an accurate portrayal of many children involved in bullying, said Professor Ryan.

He said abused children were far more likely to either be the victims or the perpetrators of bullying.

-Sydney Morning Herald