Context
Mighty Girls wanted to extend our youth led and solution focused approach to an important social issue close to our hearts. Sexual harassment and sexual violence in school settings is still a significant issue that affects many children and young people, particularly girls.
In 2020 the charity Everyone’s Invited blew the whistle on this serious problem that has so many negative consequences for all students. This type of harassment is often normalized in schools, accepted by students as part of everyday life, and even dismissed as "just banter." Ofsted conducted a rapid review of Sexual Abuse in Schools and Colleges and published its recommendations in June 2021.
The Mighty Girls steering group have ongoing discussions about friendships and relationships. Together with the Mighty Girls board, they developed an idea – The Positive Relationships Project. The project is designed to empower young people to tackle issues around peer relationships and equip them with the skills to advocate for positive relationships amongst their peers.
In July 2023 the Women’s & Equalities Committee published a report highlighting ongoing failures to address and stop sexual violence in schools. You can read the recommendations here - Attitudes towards women and girls in educational settings
NOTE Abuse between children is not restricted to gender-based abuse – children also need help to tackle racist, homophobic and other forms of abuse. We believe all students need to feel safe and equal in their school community, be reminded of what a positive relationship is and how to stand up and advocate for themselves and others.
What are we doing?
The board were successful in a bid for funding from the National Lottery Community Fund. We are funded until summer 2025.
Using a youth led approach, our project team works within secondary schools in Wiltshire and Somerset over 6-8 sessions. We meet with and survey students to gather insights about student safety, gender-based stereotypes, racial abuse, homophobic harassment and other forms of abuse in their school community. Our facilitators guide and support the students to plan and deliver social action within their school community to improve peer relationships.
PROJECT AIMS
Reduce child on child abuse in secondary schools
Raise the voice of lesser heard groups of the community - including girls.
Create a network of youth advocates
The projects extends and deepens young people’s understanding of key themes in the RSE curriculum around respectful relationships, friendships and being safe.
BENEFITS FOR PARTICIPANTS
As a youth led - young people tackle issues important to them in their current setting
Participants receive Equality & Diversity training
Participants receive Advocacy training
Opportunities for young people to lead and make a difference in their communities
Get involved
To involve the young people in your school or community group please get in touch with us:
“Being involved in the Positive Relationships project has enabled the pupils to be more reflective on their own relationships and behaviour and to that of other pupils. In the past they may have ignored negative behaviours and comments from other pupils whereas now they are more aware of inappropriate language and more readily able to address this, seek support from adults in school and control their own responses.”
Year 9 Pastoral Support Manager
Partners
We are working with secondary schools in West Wiltshire and Bath and North East Somerset, and collaborate with youth and community groups to ensure our activities are inclusive an accessible to all young people.
Boys in Mind, Wilshire Council - Healthy Schools, Off The Record
Hardenhuish, Kingsbury Green, Melksham Oak, St Laurence, John Of Gaunt
Transforming social infrastructure for positive peer cultures:
Youth-led advocacy to reduce child-on-child sexual harm
Dr Rachel Wilder
Through a British Academy Innovation Fellowship, Dr Rachel Wilder from the department of Education at the University of Bath is working in partnership with Mighty Girls to evaluate the impact of the Positive Relationships project by exploring what solutions young people develop to promote positive peer cultures and reduce child-on-child harm, the potential of these impacts for sustainability, the contribution of the project to public pedagogy on child-on-child harm, and the significance of the project for young people’s agency and ownership.
She is also exploring additional research questions about how young people engaged in the project experience risk, vulnerability and epistemic leadership.
Rachel is supporting Mighty Girls and a wider group of stakeholders to engage in deeper learning and reflection on youth leadership and youth cultures. The outcomes of this project including a scholarly publication as well as a practitioner resource for good practices of addressing child-on-child harm, including school partnerships with third party organisations.
School 1 – Year 9 girls designed and presented an assembly to raise awareness of the impact of Street Harassment on girls their school.
School 2 – Participants created a presentation sharing student anonymized testimonials and developed resources to encourage discussion about upstanding and inclusiveness in the school community.
School 3 – Created a video to share with incoming Year 7 students and other year groups. Developed social scripts to encourage positive interactions in school, and how to diffuse tricky situations and met with the head to share their recommendations and reflections.
Impact & Outputs Year 1
As an extension of the Positive Relationships project work Boys in Mind and Mighty Girls are working together to create meaningful & respectful conversations about consent and relationships among young people. Over the summer of 2023 we made this film which shares youth perspectives on consent, gendered differences & suggestions to improve relationships and sex education.