From Young People to the Wider Community – Adult Information Evenings

Earlier this year we were delighted to deliver a well-attended Child Criminal Exploitation (CCE) awareness session with parents and carers of Year 8 students in Yateley, Hampshire. The informative and rewarding session ran in the evening immediately following the IMPACT session their children had already experienced that day.

The Session 

The evening began with a performance of our CCE play, “Our Town”.  Afterwards, a Q&A session with “making meaning” workshop activities, such as ‘hot-seating’ the characters (questioning the actors whilst in role), ensures attendees can discover more about the motives, dilemmas and decisions the different characters are faced with. These sessions extend awareness and introduce conversation points and debate. 

Parents/carers always show enthusiasm and a shared commitment to better understand this complex issue, and to develop the confidence to talk to their children constructively about CCE.  Here are some of their comments: 

“I am very grateful for this session. I feel equipped to talk to my children about the risks of CCE and let them know what to be aware of. That they can always ask for help.” 

“Very informative and great demonstrations. Characters and settings very believable. This is definitely needed to help educate our children (and parents) to enable our communities to stay safe. Thank you.” 

“It was a very good event and informative. Learnt a lot that I wasn’t expecting. Thinks it’s a brilliant thing to be informing children and parents.” 

Positive outcomes are far more likely to be achieved with adult support outside of school, across the whole community.  Parents, caregivers, teachers and those who work with young people through youth groups, charities and mentorship programmes can all learn from the experiential nature and collaborative structure of our workshops.  The environment and delivery are accommodating and accessible. 

Some of the positive feedback we have received from these evenings shows that adults – often with no previous knowledge of CCE or knife crime – are helped immensely by being given a communication toolkit.  They can use examples from the play to raise difficult issues with young people, and the young people in turn are reassured that the adults have the knowledge and empathy to be trusted and approachable should they have any concerns about themselves or friends becoming involved in CCE or gangs.  Parents and youth leaders also know the early signs to look out for at home and in extracurricular situations; we cannot underestimate the value in identifying children at risk and on the cusp of CCE and gang association before they become involved. 

PC Paul Knaggs of the Hart North Neighbourhood Policing Team was at the recent IMPACT information evening.  He had high praise for the event: 

“Thank you for the performance you gave to the parents and guardians of year 8.  Exactly the same as their children.  They were engrossed.  I have worked at Yateley for over 25 years and know the community extremely well. They were captivated by the performance and the County Lines content having previously not been aware of how it works or what it involved.  Your team input got that message across.  The combination of parents and children having the same input has doubled the chance of protecting our children that may be caught up in County Lines. 

The level of input along with the structure were set at exactly the right level for the intended audiences.  The use of characters within the performance including a drug dealer, a drug runner and a family member kept the whole presentation real.  They were really good.  Then for the children to be able to question the characters whilst they stayed in role was perfect and added to the immersive experience.  The message delivered in this way clarified the impact and affect County Lines has on family and general life. 

This type of input should be rolled out County wide to make Hampshire a safer place.  The Gamechanger input has given the children of year 8, their parents and guardians the opportunity to see and learn about the signs of County Lines in order to protect themselves for the future.

Thank you for your contribution to the Yateley Community.” 

We’re glad that the parents and local police found the evening to be so helpful and we hope to hold many more sessions like this in the future.

If you’re interested in booking IMPACT sessions for young people or the wider community, then please get in touch with us today.