Protective Behaviours is a world-wide recognised program that aims to promote personal safety skills for children and adults. By creating an awareness of โsafeโ behaviours, people are empowered to use strategies that will help to prevent abuse, reduce violence in the community, and promote positive health and well-being.
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Protective Behaviours is a framework for personal safety consisting of two themes;
– We all have the right to feel safe,
– We can talk with someone about anything, even if it feels awful or small.
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and is designed to;
– Increase personal safety.
– Improve communication.
– Provide a common language of safety for children and young people.
– Empower individuals to speak up when their safety is being compromised and/or when they feel unsafe.
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Participants learned that by sharing protective behaviours information, they will be helping to develop lifelong skills of assertiveness, self-confidence, problem solving, communication, resilience and help seeking. Recognising the difference between feeling safe and unsafe is a crucial part of the Protective Behaviours program and how to teach these warning signs to children/youth and families by using โteachable momentsโ in every lives and planned activities by;
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- Teaching children the correct names for, and functions of, their body parts and how to care for, respect and protect their bodies.
- Talk about the difference between safe and unsafe secrets.
- Reinforcing using the buddy system for outings.
- Encourage them to tell someone if they are confused or upset or if they have concerns or questions.
- Teaching children they have the right to say โnoโ.
- Body awareness and ownership.
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When asked what their most valuable takeaways from the workshop, participants responded with the below;
- 1 in 4 children are sexually assaulted.
- Different types of predators – biological and opportunistic.
- Teaching children to understand those feelings of feeling unsafe and early warning signs.
- Most vulnerable age for children is 3-8 years.
- The majority of offenders will be known to the child or family.
- Living in Tom Price and it being a small town, we become complacent, often thinking our children are safe all of the time. We should be more aware of what a transient community we actually are along with the high numbers of tourists and FIFO persons.
- How important it is to fill the childโs basket of knowledge.
- Ten participants will go on to complete the Train the Trainer module in late April so this training can be shared with the wider community of Tom Price.
- Every child has the right to feel safe.
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If you would be interested in finding out more information regarding Protective Behaviours or attend future workshops, please send your information to CRC@nintirri.org.auย