As part of the consultation process for developing SafeSkills, our resource developing skills to protect vulnerable young people from grooming and sexual exploitation, we worked with a group of teenage girls who had themselves been groomed. The group were receiving support from Liverpool's 'Targeted Services for Young People' Team and as part of this process we worked with their Support Worker to deliver a creative programme of workshops exploring their experiences.
During the sessions the group discussed the grooming process, which had taken place in a local park. The sessions allowed them to reflect on what had happened and to begin to see why the behaviour of the older lads was not appropriate and might have put them at risk. They began to recognise risky situations, which they had previously viewed as safe and discussed positive ways that they might manage the risks of some of the situations they had experienced.
During the project they worked with our scriptwriter and illustrator to develop a short animation that shows how the grooming process had begun. This animation became the film 'Parks', which is part of our SafeSkills resource. The group felt empowered by the fact that their film would be use by local schools to help protect other young people.
