Equally Safe: final report

Key Achievements: Priority One

Achievements in Relation to Priority One

Scottish society embraces equality and mutual respect, and rejects all forms of violence against women and girls

Objectives

• Positive gender roles are promoted
• People enjoy healthy, positive relationships
• Children and young people develop an understanding of safe, healthy and positive relationships from an early age.
• Individuals and communities recognise and challenge violent and abusive behaviour

Equally Safe prioritises primary prevention and challenges the notion that violence is inevitable or acceptable. Many of the actions that have been or are still being delivered under this priority are intended to raise awareness and challenge the existing attitudes that create the societal conditions for gender based violence to flourish. Key highlights are summarised in this chapter.

In schools

• The Scottish Government is taking forward a range of actions aimed at developing mutually respectful, responsible and confident relationships amongst children and young people. The 2019/20 Programme for Government contained a commitment to produce national guidance for schools which will set out the range of support and practical prevention and intervention measures available. Prevention and early intervention are key elements of an approach focussed on ensuring we get it right for all of our children and young people.
• A Gender based violence/sexual harassment in schools Short Life Working Group has been established to identify effective practice; identify gaps and develop a number of resources to support primary and secondary schools to address incidents of gender based violence/sexual harassment. Existing work in schools on anti-bullying as well as learning within the curriculum on safe and healthy relationships, as part of relationships, sexual health and parenthood education, will complement work towards this commitment.
• Equally Safe at School is an intervention designed to support schools to take holistic measures to prevent gender based violence and respond appropriately when it occurs by promoting gender equality hand-in hand with preventing and improving responses to gender based violence. Intervention mechanisms that have been trialled have included an assessment, an action group formed of students and staff, staff training, a review of the curriculum and relevant policies and a young-person led initiative or campaign. The project has been piloted by Rape Crisis Scotland, with support from Zero Tolerance, in six secondary schools within 3 local authorities, enabling intervention materials and approaches to be refined. Evaluation has been completed and an online platform is under development for full roll out in 2021.
• Local Rape Crisis centres deliver an evidence-based intervention to young people in secondary schools across Scotland. From 2018-2020 they reached 42,900 young people in over 200 schools with programmes of up to 3 workshops. Prevention Workers deliver workshops modules that cover gender, consent, sexual violence and how it can be prevented, sexualisation and pornography, social media, the impact of sexual violence and how to access support. The programme aims to provide consistency in approaches to the prevention of sexual violence and contributes to Equally Safe in its aim to address the systematic inequality, attitudes and assumptions that give rise to violence and abusive behaviour. Feedback from young people continues to demonstrate high levels of agreement with the messages of the workshops and that young people self-assess as having gained knowledge and understanding in relation to sexual violence. One key aim of the Equally Safe delivery plan was to extend the programme into every local authority, and this has now been achieved with support through Scottish Government funding. Despite most schools having been unable to accommodate prevention workshops as a result of COVID-19 restrictions put in place earlier this year, prevention workers have adapted materials for remote delivery, as well as engaging with young people via social media and further developing relationships with partner organisations.
• All 32 local authorities are engaged with the Mentors in Violence Prevention programme, a peer education programme that gives young people the chance to explore and challenge the attitudes, beliefs and cultural norms that underpin gender-based violence, bullying and other forms of violence. All but three of these authorities have begun a roll out to secondary schools and sixteen local authorities now have their own trainers. Approximately 190 schools have a trained staff team who have delivered mentor training to seniors who in turn have delivered the MVP programme to younger learners.

In colleges and universities

• The Scottish Government has provided additional funding to support the implementation and roll out of the Equally Safe in Higher Education toolkit Toolkit and its adaptation and adoption for the college sector. It has been adopted by a number of Higher Education Institutions across Scotland. Work in this area is driven forward by the Equally Safe in Colleges and Universities Working Group and as part of this Rape Crisis Scotland has been working with the college and university sector, Rape Crisis centres and Women's Aid groups as well as other strategic partners to build capacity for, and facilitate the delivery of training to college and university staff. Last year training was delivered to 15 institutions by 14 Rape Crisis and Women's Aid groups, and this year the focus is on conversion to online delivery. An online learning tool for students on gender based violence was also developed and this is now being made freely available to institutions.

Support for professionals working with children and young people

• In May 2019, the Scottish Government published a new resource for professionals to help them support young people's understanding of healthy relationships and consent. This means that wherever a young person seeks advice - whether from a teacher, a health professional or a youth worker – they should receive consistent, age appropriate information. The 'Key Messages on Healthy Relationships and Consent' have been developed as part of the Scottish Government's work on supporting positive relationships and sexual wellbeing in young people. The messages set out that relationships should be mutually respectful, consensual, positive, healthy – and enjoyable. They are applicable to all romantic relationships regardless of whether they are in same sex or mixed sex relationships.

Examples of good practice locally

• Argyll & Bute have developed the Council's Domestic Abuse website in 2019 and it now includes the Equally Safe plan and up to date information about services to assist victims of Domestic Abuse. Members of the VAW Partnership have ensured that their websites are up to date and reflect the work of the partnership. During the COVID-19 situation the partnership has worked with a range of groups (CPP, Caring for People) to raise awareness of domestic abuse and the services available to assist; this includes putting out information to show men concerned about their behaviour where they can get help.
• The Glasgow VAWP developed Equally Safe Young People, a guidance document for youth workers. A corresponding workshop was developed to support youth workers integrate this into practice which Under Pressure materials from Zero Tolerance and exercises developed to use the guidance. A training for trainers workshop was developed and a cohort of 10 facilitators were trained to support the delivery of the workshop directly to youth workers. Subsequently, through the HSCP Youth Workers Providers Training Programme workshops were then offered directly to youth workers.
• In East Ayrshire, a "Gender 10" resource was launched recently to promote gender equality within schools, taking on a whole school approach. The VAWP have agreed to adopt a public health approach to map current activity in line with Equally Safe, Curriculum for Excellence and the national Relationships, Sexual health and Parenthood Resource (RSHP). Ayrshire College continues to engage with East Ayrshire in training and development and more recently has partnered with the Star Centre, East Ayrshire Women's Aid and Rape Crisis to deliver staff training based on the Equally Safe First Responder Model for colleges and universities in Scotland.
  Working in partnership with NHS Ayrshire & Arran, they have been involved in raising awareness of gender based violence, in particular domestic abuse in LGBT+ relationships.
• In the Scottish Borders, there has also been a collaboration with Youth Borders to support youth workers to deliver key components of the national sexual violence programme with Scottish Borders Rape Crisis Centre providing training, support and evaluation of the collaboration. This will significantly increase the reach of the prevention work to a wider audience of young people.
• In South Lanarkshire, a Partnership Communications Strategy is forthcoming which includes targeted public awareness raising campaigns of identified key VAW themes; this includes public exhibitions and events, social media campaigns, surveys and posters and leaflets being displayed in all supermarkets and pharmacies across South Lanarkshire. Individual partner agencies, such as Women’s Aid South Lanarkshire, Lanarkshire Rape Crisis and MVP also run local awareness raising campaigns.