Kids Count at the Conservative Party Conference

Over the two-day time frame we managed to attend various fringe meetings where many controversial topics were discussed and opinions were shared. At a Women's Aid fringe meeting we heard an extract of an empowering real-life account from Charlotte Kneer who spoke about the troubles she faced and shared her thoughts on the importance of refuges’ help and support in regards to specialist.

Despite her challenging past however, she managed to get a positive outcome from this. She is now working alongside Reigate & Banstead Borough Council and Surrey County Council, helping to provide accommodation to those who are most vulnerable due to their current situation, whether it being a lone parent or a mother in a relationship seeking for refuge because they were threatened to be killed or aggressively and persistently abused by their spouse.

Exploring the sensitive issues surrounding the topic we articulated ideas of the main factors that cause this to occur. Such as the media that infiltrates a negative image of women. The fact that women are being objectified every single day, knowingly and unknowingly, seeing as the media plays a big part in this. You'd be surprised on the visual impact adverts give off especially to the younger generation.

However this is not the only factor that affects us - the youth. Socialisation is another major impact on the way we think and communicate and voice our thoughts on current affairs. The way in which we imitate our parents as well as learning how to talk and eat from an early age; we pick up the good habits such as saying “Please” or “Thank you” and sometimes the bad habits as well. Children seeing domestic violence occurring can have a negative impact, thus affecting their mindset.

It was truly great hearing thoughts on the matter, especially from MP Maria Miller, who spoke about revenge porn, which happens quite often to children as young as 11 who are greatly affected, and how young people under the age of 18 sending indecent explicit images to one another is illegal.

Another major factor that was discussed was schools and sex education and how parents should not be able to opt out of the choice of their son or daughter having this knowledge.

Some of us in the room felt young people should be educated more in-depth by specialists, peer-led activities and maybe even broadening the curriculum by making it mandatory for the youth of today and we are seen as the future of society.

Moreover, Kids Count, a youth-led charity, wants to make a change. We managed to create a campaign called “Respect me because i count” -something that complements the charity Women's Aid and what their organisation is about.  This is one of our upcoming campaigns about young people in abusive relationships, which is where it all starts.

Teaching young people and educating them on what is a healthy and safe relationship and how to approach worse-case scenarios etc, which is a great stepping stone for the youth and it is very important and should be mandatory to educate both young males and females on this issue as it is definitely something that can affect us at any point in our lives.

Overall, the inspiring opinions were shared and gave us time to reflect and served to educate us further, which was by far the most eye-opening experience so far.  

Farin is blogging on behalf of Kids Count, a think-tank focused on the practical rather than the theoretical. Find out more at www.kidscount.org.uk