The Practitioner and Policy Roundtable was started by Professor Catherine Lee’s introductory remark. As a former teacher with 25 years of experience, she expressed deep personal and professional investment in the research on tech-facilitated abuse, particularly its impact on gender and sexuality-diverse youth. Professor Lee commended the importance of the research and the efforts of those involved, thanking everyone for their contributions.
During the roundtable discussion, several critical questions around practices in addressing tech-facilitated sexual violence were raised:
- What are the main challenges faced by your organization in dealing with the problem of young people and tech-facilitated gender-based violence?
- What would you like to see improved, and what needs to happen for you and your organization to better support young people?
- How can teachers and third-sector organisations be culturally aware of that in the delivery of sexual education?
- Where do parents fit within this and how can teachers work with parents?
- Are there other professionals having there been engagement with youth services in your areas or fields? And what’s been the experience?
- Are there any recommendations on this joint-up approach between schools and the third sector organisations?
Roundtable participants emphasized challenges including the normalisation and hidden nature of these issues, lack of knowledge and training, the importance of a comprehensive, lack of whole-school approach to address these issues rather than relying on isolated interventions, engaging boys in discussions around sexual harassment, and lack of a focus on prevention rather than reactive measures etc.
Participants also discussed strategies when trying to engage different groups in addressing this issue. They encouraged schools to provide full transparency to parents and ongoing, open communication between parents and schools about Relationship, Sex and Health Education (RSHE) to avoid misconceptions, respecting their perspectives and allowing them to voice concerns. Schools and other third-sector organisations need to acknowledge the need for training and resources for teachers to effectively handle RSHE topics and to be prepared for potential disclosures from students.
The discussion also highlighted the importance of recognizing the agency of young people. This could include encouraging parents to engage in ongoing conversations with young people about RSHE, fostering an environment where discussions happen regularly, advocating for the inclusion of digital citizenship skills in education to equip young people with the ability to evaluate information online critically, and empowering young people while balancing the importance of safeguarding.
Overall, the challenges discussed call for creating an inclusive, informed, and proactive environment within schools to address the complex issues of sexual harassment, online safety, and relationships.
Feminist Educational Engagement Lab 