Bucks woman promoting toolkit to recognise a healthy relationship
Women Aid have created the toolkit in partnership with Yves Saint Laurent Beauty
A Buckinghamshire woman is highlighting the importance of educating young people on relationships.
Women's Aid alongside Yves Saint Laurent Beauty have launched an education toolkit 'Expect Respect' as part of their global campaign 'Abuse Is Not Love'.
The campaign aims to educate 2 million people by 2030 on Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) and work towards the long-term eradication of abuse.
Alice Liveing was 16 when she found herself in an abusive relationship, she says she misread the signs:
"I was really young when I found myself in both a mentally and physically abusive relationship.
"He seemed really interested in me and as someone who had never really been in a relationship it was a huge learning curve.
"Suddenly this person was wanting to know where I was all the time, checking my phone, want to know who I was with and my first thought was 'oh wow this guy really likes me'.
"Actually what I didn't know was that those things are signs of controlling behaviour and they soon escalated into physical violence and psychological abuse.
"He ground me down to a shadow of my former self and isolated from my support networks I had known and so I found myself in a really isolated situation.
"It was only when he attacked me in public, that people saw how bad things had got beacuse he turned up at my school and there were witnesses."
At this point police became involved and Alice was able to remove herself from the situation.
She says that some of the things included in this toolkit could have helped her to avoid that position or understand how to remove herself earlier.
The toolkit features sessions around healthy relationships for children and young people aged 4-18 years old.
Age appropriate activities are featured but they can also be used by adults.
Topics covered include:
- Challenging assumptions about gender, power and equality
- Managing feelings and accepting responsibility for one’s own feeling and behaviours
- Understanding that domestic abuse is a crime
- Understanding consent online and offline
- Being aware of red flags in early relationships.
Although the toolkit is aimed at understanding what makes a healthy romantic relationship, the lessons learnt can be transferred to friendships, workplace interactions and beyond.