Since 2010, the Home Office has run an annual campaign to raise awareness about abuse in teenage relationships. This year’s campaign has just launched and you can find all the campaign materials here. It is likely that young people you support will see the adverts on tv and may have questions about the content, or want to talk about their own relationships. Quite often, it may be the first time they have realised that their relationship is abusive and this can be a time of increased risk as well as causing anxiety and confusion. Therefore it is important to make yourselves familiar with the resources and information in the campaign.
The campaign was developed following the successful ‘This is Abuse’ campaign which ran from February 2010 to April 2014. A summary report of the ‘This is Abuse’ campaign is available to download here www.gov.uk/government/publications/this-is-abuse-summary-report
The Home Office state that the aim of the campaign is to “prevent young people from becoming perpetrators and victims of abusive relationships by encouraging young people to re-think their views of abuse, controlling behaviour and what consent and sexting means within relationships“.
Topics covered by the campaign include:
- Relationship abuse
- Consent
- Rape
- Porn
- ‘Sexting’
- Sexual Harassment
Campaign discussion guide & lesson plans
The campaign has an accompanying discussion guide which sets out lesson plans for each of the issues covered by the campaign: relationship abuse, consent and sexting. The guide enables professionals who work with young people (including those aged from 8-11 and 16-18) to use the adverts to continue the conversation and answer questions that might be raised regarding these complex issues, to embed messages and develop positive relationship behaviours. You can access the discussion guide here.
You can help support the campaign on twitter #disrespectnobody