Director’s Blog – Lisa Charlotte Davis
Convened by Aisling Barker at the Cabinet Office, the webinar featured a fascinating discussion between Dr Jade Levell, Marcel Campbell and Justine Dodds.
So many of the key points rang true with the work we have been doing in this area over the last few years:
💡 That harmful behaviours are starting at a younger age.
💡That we need to see much earlier interventions before unhealthy behaviours go beyond normalised to entrenched.
💡That there is an intersection of the contexts in which harmful behaviours are being displayed, crossing between the privacy of intimate partner relationships to things happening in the public space.
💡That young people need to be more explicitly supported to understand how relationships actually work. And not just intimate ones. Relationships in general. With family. With friends. What are the building blocks that make ongoing interactions between humans feel healthy rather than harmful?
💡That young people need to be supported to develop the self-awareness to understand why they are making certain choices to be able to be in a position to consider making other, healthier, choices.
💡That professionals who engage with young people need greater confidence to be able to tackle these tricky topics, unpicking attitudes and behaviours with young people in ways that enable them to engage rather than defend and retreat.
So much of the learning content we have been developing at Changing Relations reflects these understandings and works to address them:
🎬 our peer sexual abuse-themed animation – Weaving Stories
🎬 our toxic teen relationship-themed film – A is for Amy
🎬 our stories of harmful things happening at home – Sometimes it Hurts
Obviously in this somewhat horrendous financial climate for the VCSE sector, the elephant in the room is funding for people such as ourselves (and others) who are doing this vital work to be able to reach more schools and youth groups with the fabulous content we have developed!!!
Any spare change down the back of your sofa folks – give us a shout!!!
Photo credit – Carl Joyce
