When the UK went into lockdown in March 2020, people's professional, academic, and domestic lives changed in ways post-war London had never experienced before. Our work at the VRU is heavily focused on investing in and supporting young people as well as those who they rely on, such as youth practitioners, their families, and teachers.
Much of this work takes place in settings where young people are present, including youth centres and schools. But as these spaces closed their doors under the new restrictions and young people were confined to their homes, many of our programmes were unable to continue delivering crucial interventions in the modes they had intended.
Meanwhile, concerning data started to emerge about sharp increases in calls to domestic abuse hotlines and to the police during lockdown. This highlighted the importance of the work we had invested in to prevent young people from becoming perpetrators or victims of domestic and sexual abuse through school-based programmes like Tender. With schools closed, we hear how the Tender programme adapted their delivery in order continue operating under these challenging conditions.
How we adapted - by Dawn Howley, Training Consultant at Tender
Tender exists to end domestic abuse and sexual violence by focusing on two core priorities. We work with children and young adults in a range of settings to prevent them from becoming either victims or perpetrators of domestic abuse in the future. We also work to raise the profile of these issues and create a step change in terms of attitude and tolerance by delivering training and awareness-raising sessions for professionals supporting children and young people.
We were very grateful to receive funding from the VRU as part of the Supporting Inclusive Schools Programme to deliver arts-based healthy relationships workshops to 3,751 children and young people across 15 London Boroughs since the project began in September 2019. As part of this project, we also deliver Domestic Abuse Awareness training to a range of staff supporting these young people, and their families.
Due to the restrictions introduced when the UK went into lockdown, we had to pause delivery of the projects in schools and alternative provisions. Sadly, the rates of domestic abuse surged during lockdown. In March, Refuge reported a 700% increase in calls to their helpline. We wanted to ensure staff supporting young people and families could access the training. As the scale of the pandemic became apparent, we proposed to the VRU that, rather than pause the staff training we were due to deliver, we would adapt and deliver this work remotely.
The team at Tender had a steep and rapid learning curve getting to grips with delivery via Zoom and MS Teams. Since April, we have been extremely busy training teachers together with other school staff, early help teams, and social workers. The training helps staff understand the facts, myths, and risk factors relating to sexual and domestic violence, its impact on children and young people, and it enables them to better support young people and families.
We made the decision to run interactive training as opposed to webinars because we recognised the need for people to have a space to discuss the issues raised in the learning, as well as share the challenges they are facing with other professionals. The level of engagement and commitment to learning more about this issue has been incredible. It has also been useful for people to share resources and signpost in these rapidly changing times.
Excellent training the will enable domestic violence conversations with parents and children to have more depth...
Exceptionally timely for us as a school, and some useful discussion about supporting families and each other...
I learnt how to notice early warning signs and educate young people on what these are to help them develop their own healthy relationships...
We’ve had consistently excellent feedback throughout; these professionals tell us our training has equipped them with a better understanding of the issues, that they are now more confident in dealing with them, and that they feel better prepared for the challenges in managing increased disclosures of domestic abuse. The flexibility of the VRU in allowing us to adapt and work in this way has allowed us to reach over 200 professionals who work with young people since April. We have several trainings in the diary until December and are planning more dates throughout 2021.
Contact
If you have any queries about the Tender programme, please email them at [email protected].
You can visit their website at www.tender.org.uk