Empowering children’s voice
Our latest TNL Communities Fund project will work with groups of children to deliver 12-week workshop programmes that use forum theatre to develop refusal and resistance skills. We will deliver creative workshops with children to explore their experience of grooming, radicalisation and inappropriate use of the internet.
Evaluation partners tell us that the engagement of parents and carers is the best way to maximise the impact of our refusal and resistance skills training. Therefore, this new programme will focus on a significant development in the way that we work; we will engage parents and carers as ‘spect-actors’ in our forum theatre workshops. These adults will be invited to step into the drama, for example, to play the role of a parent whose child is being groomed by a criminal gang. Children will be empowered to share their thoughts and fears with key adults in their lives and enter into a dialogue with those adults who have a responsibility to protect them.
This approach will build upon the work that Ariel Trust has deliver with support from the National Lottery but it will deliver greater impacts for the young people. It will enable them to talk to their parents, and other adults, about the challenges they face in an online world.
The project will make a difference by working with 135 children each year to;
- Building skills that can be used to resist or refuse the processes of grooming or radicalisation
- Developing positive communication skills including asking for help and bystander intervention
- Promoting positive communication between children and adults
Our programmes will work with children who are identified as being vulnerable to exploitation by partners who know them well, e.g. their schools or youth clubs. These will be children identified as engaging in risky behaviours e.g. adding people they don’t know as online friends, sharing inappropriate images or at risk of being attracted to local gangs.
To find out more or to discuss a potential project, please contact Project Officer Rachael Mutch.
