Yesterday, the two lead Police Youth Engagement Officers for Cheshire, PC Amy Fletcher and PC Jane Commins, led an interactive workshop for acet UK, about ‘Sex and the Law.’
As relationships and sex educators, we are regularly asked questions like “Is it illegal if…?”; “Would someone get in trouble for…?” or - most difficult to answer - “What would the police actually do in reality if…?” This workshop helped delegates answer these questions with confidence and authority.
Amy and Jane delivered a presentation about the key laws governing this area and emphasised the importance of building resilience in young people, to help them navigate our digital world. We then ran some interactive activities to explore and discuss the potential consequences of different scenarios, and followed this with a Q&A session.
It was a fantastic afternoon: thank you to everyone who came along. We were able to dig deep into some very specific areas.
A key question we discussed, in a number of ways, was “How do police respond to...?” For example, how do police respond to a report of sexting? Or, how do police respond to an accusation of underage sex? In exploring the possible responses, the police outlined the 5 basic levels of response to any crime in the youth justice system and gave examples of what kind of situation would result in which response. We will summarise this in the next Esteem network update.
We also had a number of discussions around sexting and the law. With the police, we will draw up some key points they would want educators to know and base their educational approach on. We will share this with the Esteem network in due course, so it can be used as a guide for planning and answering young people’s questions.