Ariel Trust has been delivering violence prevention education in Merseyside Primary schools, with support from Merseyside Violence Reduction Partnership, for the last five years. This work has been evaluated by Liverpool John Moores University and has been shown to deliver statistically significant outcomes for children in relation to ‘help seeking behaviour’ and ‘bystander attitudes’. Our programmes use a drama-based approach to developing positive communication and a key element of this is directly involving key adults in these drama activities, particularly teachers and more recently parents.
Merseyside Police were aware of our work and approached us to discuss whether we could help them to address a communication challenge in an area where they are seeing a rapidly growing number of cases; the inappropriate sharing of images between children. Currently the Police become involved only after an offence has been committed and are visiting families at this point, both victims and perpetrators, and feel their involvement is only increasing the trauma around an already distressing situation.
Ariel responded by consulting Police Officers, parents, teachers and children, to explore what a preventative programme should look like and how this could be designed in a way that is age appropriate for primary schools, as starting secondary school is seen as a key factor in the increasing risk to children. A number of key aims were identified:-
- Raising understanding of the law in relation to making and sharing images, both with the children but importantly with their parents, who often do not understand the legal position
- Although the consequences need to be addressed, focusing on an earlier stage in the process i.e. before an image is shared, and using drama to develop refusal skills and help seeking behaviour
- Engaging parents and teachers in a drama-based programme that focuses on getting them to evaluate how they communicate to children, particularly how they listen when a child asks for help with a challenging issue
- Providing ways that Police Officers can engage in the programme in a way that promotes positive communication with children, breaking down the barriers that often exist in relation to speaking to the Police.
Based on the discussions during the consultation process Ariel developed a draft script for a new film using the characters from our existing ‘Send me a Selfie’ film, imagining that they move forward and begin sharing images. The script was developed with the OCAIT team at Merseyside Police to ensure the scenes where Police Officers knocks on the families’ doors are realistic.
We next piloted this script with a class in St Helens. Parents were invited, and attended the sessions, as did an Officer from the OCAIT Team. The Detective Sergeant actively engaged in the drama activities, rehearsing conversations with children, playing the role of the Police Officer talking to them about sharing images and giving the children a realistic understanding of the consequences. The children practiced rewinding from this conversation and role-playing earlier conversations designed to avoid reaching the point where the Police become involved.
The response to this initial pilot, so based on this our team of Theatre Practitioners continued piloting the script and developing a scheme of work to explore the key themes over a series of session. At the same time, our Management Team sought to secure funding, from a mix of Statutory Partners and Trusts & Foundations to enable us to develop the programme as a website that can by rolled out to our 150 partner schools. We hope to launch the finished website in September 2025, with a working title of ‘A Knock at the Door’.
