In an update to its toolkit on serious youth violence, the Youth Endowment Fund (YEF), revealed that one in seven teenage children watched sexual violence being committed online last year and that one in 12 teenage girls were victims of sexual assault.
Meanwhile, a survey of 1,000 teenagers, carried out by the Sex Education Forum, finds that 28 per cent of those asked say they are not learning about how to tell if a relationship is healthy, including online relationships.
The YEF’s toolkit - which gives an overview of existing research on approaches to preventing serious youth violence – finds that teaching students about topics including attitudes associated with dating violence in relationships and sex education lessons (RSE) could decrease instances of violent crime involving young people by 17 per cent overall.
Schools are also urged to engage with stories about the impact of these types of crime and help young people learn how to spot the early signs of unhealthy relationships during such lessons.
YEF has added a new topic called Relationship violence prevention lessons and activities to its toolkit.
Each approach included in the toolkit is ranked according to its impact on preventing serious violence, from “high” to “harmful” or “unknown” and is given a score to indicate the quality of the associated research.
Resources on relationship violence prevention lessons and activities is currently ranked as having a “moderate” impact on violent crime based on an analysis of 16 UK and international research studies.
Jon Yates, executive director at YEF, said: “Schools delivering high quality relationships and sex education lessons can reduce certain types of violence by almost 20 per cent. This is a huge opportunity to make our society safer, especially for women and girls.”
Minister for safeguarding, Sarah Dines added: “It is deeply concerning that young people are exposed to sexual violence and it is clear that we need major societal change to protect young people from sexual predators."
“We know that educating young people about healthy relationships is a vital part of this.”
