Our take on the government’s Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy

The UK government published its VAWG strategy “Freedom from violence and abuse: a cross-governmental strategy” in December 2025 as a proposal to deliver its manifesto pledge to halve VAWG within 10 years. The strategy has three main pillars: prevention and early intervention, pursuit of perpetrators and victim support. In 2025, we collaborated with the End Violence Against Women Coalition and 60+ other expert VAWG organisations to set our expectations for the government strategy.

The strategy is a welcome shift in the right direction with a positive emphasis on preventing harm by educating children and young people. The importance of tackling online harms is prominent with key themes called out, including a focus on AI and banning nudification apps which we covered on our blog. Many forms of VAWG are reflected in the strategy and there is a clear commitment to long-term behaviour change shaped by experts. We are pleased to see the recognition of and commitment to specialist support organisations serving their own communities (“by and for” services) and encouraged by the inclusion of health, a topic that has previously been overlooked.

As a charity working with young people for almost a decade, we have hands-on experience navigating VAWG in schools. While we are encouraged by these positive aspects of the strategy, we have broader concerns about the strategy as a whole. 

I) It feels like a big wish list, rather than an actionable plan

The strategy feels like an ambitious wish list, rather than an actionable plan that will make a difference on the ground. We’re unsure about the long-term sustainability of funding the strategy and concerned that funding isn’t being directed to ‘by and for’ services that are already delivering support to their own communities. Wider systemic challenges within education, like funding disparities and workplace pressures, don’t seem to be recognised and we haven’t noticed any mentions of young people’s voices being centred in the development of the strategy.

We believe it’s crucial to consider and incorporate the perspectives of those the strategy is designed to serve. After almost a decade of working with young people and schools, we recognise how important it is to listen to first-hand experiences and incorporate these into any plans for change to ensure it truly connects with their needs. From what we can see, the strategy overlooks crucial information about those affected, not considering key details such as how the strategy will work for teachers who haven’t received training, and are often overworked and underpaid.

2) Investment in new pilot programmes vs. funding expert organisations with years of experience

Image by Hannah B

We are also frustrated to see the strategy investing in new pilot teacher training programmes, rather than investing in the established, evidence-based programmes delivered by existing specialist organisations (like us!). We, along with many other expert organisations, have spent years developing our services based on our extensive experience working directly with young people and educators.

The new strategy is missing a key opportunity to tap into the existing wealth of insights from teams on the ground. The strategy is taking credit for its prevention aims, but not giving credit to the many amazing organisations that have been calling for this for decades.

We believe the strategy should embed RSHE training into initial teacher training, but also needs to recognise the existing pressures on teachers. There is a clear need to engage existing specialist services to deliver RSHE, rather than placing the responsibility on teachers alone. 

3) Not addressing the nuances around intersectional identities

The strategy fails to acknowledge the nuances around the intersectional identities of people who will be using these services, notably the exclusion of migrants, people of colour and disabled folk. We’ve noticed that it also fails to address the intersection of sexual violence and race, transphobia and ableism, and anti-racism isn’t mentioned anywhere. 

We believe that understanding and challenging the intersecting power relations that exist in our society is crucial for creating meaningful change. Without approaching VAWG from this perspective, a huge proportion of society who are disproportionately impacted by sexual violence will be overlooked and their needs will remain unmet. 

How School of Sexuality Education is already delivering on the VAWG strategy’s key aims

Prevention

For a decade, we have provided sessions that challenge misogyny and embedded sexual violence including training for teachers and workshops for young people. All of our workshops are designed to challenge harmful attitudes and encourage critical thinking in ALL students (not just boys) due to the extensive internalised misogyny and victim blaming we’ve seen first-hand. Our spiral programmes explore,

• power and consent,

• pressure and coercion

• and how to build safe, healthy relationships and navigate conflict.

We also work with teachers to provide them with the tools to support young people in a non-judgemental way that challenges harm and avoids reinforcing problematic gendered stereotypes.

Victim support

We always signpost young people to support services where they can talk if needed. We recognise that while teachers and other trusted adults play an important role, they may not be able to provide the specialist support that some young people need. We aim to empower young people to access services on their own terms so they can feel fully supported.

All of our programmes encourage young people to think about how we can challenge victim blaming, including educating about where these ideas might have been learned because we know how deeply they are embedded in our society. Overall, a huge part of what we do is advocating for and empowering young people. We exist to provide them with the necessary tools to make safe, informed decisions that prioritise the wellbeing of themselves and their peers.

Digital harms

Our work focuses on building young people’s understanding of navigating online spaces through the core principles of consent, equality, digital literacy and their rights. For nearly a decade, we’ve been working with young people, academics, prevention specialists and schools to address and prevent digital harms. We collaborated on research projects with Professor Jessica Ringrose (UCL) and Professor Tanya Horeck (Anglia Ruskin University) developing reports, resources and guidance that schools can use to embed sexual violence prevention within their settings. Click here to view our work.

Speak to one of our unembarrassable team members to find out how we can support your school in meeting these objectives.

Containment over outrage: how to support young people in the age of rage-baiting

By Emma, Head of Policy & Research

***Content warning: discussions of sexual assault of under 18s***

In developmental psychology, there is the concept of ‘emotional containment’. It describes the process of being able to hold someone else’s - particularly a child’s - difficult feelings. It is different from offering comfort or from soothing or even distracting an individual from their current state. Instead, it means staying with them in their distress and helping them to process their emotions. 

Let’s think about an upset child, who has just dropped their ice-cream cone on the ground and is now understandably very upset. They are crying loudly. For most of us, our first instinct might be to rush to buy a replacement cone. Or maybe offer them ours or another handy alternative treat as consolation. A parent looking at the situation from an emotional containment point of view though, might approach things slightly differently. Instead of trying to fix the problem, they might get down to the child’s level and demonstrate looking at the dropped ice-cream, sharing in the difficult feelings with them. Perhaps they might remark to the child how upsetting it must be to have lost the thing they were looking forward to, labelling and validating the child’s response. It is thought that experiences of emotional containment from caregivers help children to learn how to regulate and process their feelings, building emotional resilience. 

The idea of ‘emotional containment’ came to mind while I was following the response to the recent sentencing news of two teenagers found guilty of several rape charges in Hampshire. Or rather, the need for emotional containment and the apparent lack of it came to mind. The news itself contains a lot of distressing details. Two 14-year-old boys have been found guilty of attacking and raping two girls, also teenagers. A knife was used in one of the attacks, all of which was filmed and later shared on social media. 

Image by Deeanna J

When it was learned that the two people found guilty of this series of sexual assaults would not serve a prison sentence, many expressed their shock and appall at the decision. I watched a series of responses unfold on social media, as various content creators crafted responses from this outrage. All of which is very understandable and very, very human. But it made me wonder what the effect of this outrage might be and where it stood with this idea of emotional containment. 

I wonder if, for at least some of the content creators, it brings about a sense of relief and catharsis. Perhaps even a sense of satisfaction at having shared their important viewpoint. I suspect that the outrage also brings attention and a greater audience. Even if this was not the creator’s main intention, we sometimes feel compelled to follow things that make us angry. But what might the effect be on the audience? Particularly for people who feel personally affected? How might this show of outrage make someone feel if they’re a survivor of sexual assault, a teenage girl or both? I think it might be alarming, scary and well… uncontained. 

So what could we do with that knowledge? Well, we might not be able to stop these narratives of outrage erupting across digital spaces. But for those of us with young people in our lives, it might be very achievable to provide at least a little sense of that emotional containment when it does. There are ways that we can practice this principle for children and adolescents in many of the roles we might play in their lives - from parents and carers to older siblings or neighbours, from teachers to librarians. 

For a start, we could acknowledge how bad things are without seeming to become overwhelmed by them ourselves. It’s possible to show that you know something sucks, but also that this doesn’t automatically make it too much for you. An important part of this might include checking-in with young people about what their awareness of issues like this is. When we all have access to such a lot of digital content, sometimes young people have a lot of awareness of issues we might assume is too ‘adult’ or ‘serious’ for them. Other times, they might be oblivious, focused on a completely different part of digital life. One way of finding out is to ask. Be curious about if and what they know about topics like this and explore any difficult feelings that might come up if they are aware of the issue. 

Another good principle is to make sure that young people know that any problems or issues they might have are never “too much” for you. Sometimes children and adolescents can avoid sharing things because they fear what an adult’s reaction might be. That might include them getting angry or upset at what they’ve been told. I’ve seen some really great examples of teachers who do this. They explicitly tell their students they are there for them if anything makes them feel angry, upset or scared, in a non-pressurised way. You can add to this by normalising getting support from other spaces. Let young people know that you are there for them, but that if they ever want to talk to someone who perhaps doesn’t know them so well, other spaces exist. This might include services like Childline, which under-18s can contact by phone (0800 1111), email or webchat. 

We can’t help but feel overwhelmed and hopeless in the face of difficult news. But we can perhaps help how we act on those feelings. In doing so, we might be able to help support young people around us in developing their emotional health. 

Emma Chan is a facilitator with School of Sexuality Education and a co-author on the charity’s sex ed book for teens. They are also a doctor working in psychiatry, with experience of working in child and adolescent mental health. Their book ‘Heads Up: A Parent’s Guide to Supporting Young People’s Mental Health and Wellbeing’, published on 1st June 2026 and is available to buy. 

Holding tech companies accountable for tech-facilitated sexual violence

On the 20th of January 2026, School of Sexuality Education officially deactivated our account on X, formerly known as Twitter. This decision was made in response to personal accounts of X’s new AI bot ‘Grok’ being used to forcibly and unconsensually remove the clothes of women and girls in photographs. As an organisation who serves as a preventative tool against gender-based sexual violence, we no longer want to be a part of a platform that has enabled exactly this kind of abuse. 

The harms enacted on X reflect a concerning trend in AI use for online sexual abuse. It is important to consider that previous developments in technology have come with new ways to perpetuate harms. Tracking apps can be used for safety, but also for manipulation. Social media can be used for genuine connection, but also to spread hate and leak personal information. In our collaborative research project with Prof. Jessica Ringrose, Prof. Kaitlyn Regehr and Betsy Milne, we found repeated patterns of technology facilitating harms like image-based sexual harassment and abuse in young people. Maximising visibility and spreadability are the driving forces of social media, which comes with great risk of reproducing and spreading harm. This is something that leaders in social media have a responsibility to actively regulate with the development of technology, to protect the rights of people who use their services. 

Action was not taken soon enough to stop the sexual abuse created by X’s AI bot. It took pressure from our government to bar this feature, although this came nearly half a year after first reports emerged of ‘Grok’ being used to create deepfakes of women. On the part of the UK government and of those working for X, this was not fast enough, allowing for the online sexual abuse to continue, affecting many more people. It is clear that those with decision making power at X do not have the best interests of its users at heart. 

Image by Evie K

We did consider what it would mean for us to stay on a platform like X and act as a counter-voice in that space. But our focus is on the work we do with young people and educators, delivering in-person inclusive, anti-racist, feminist relationships, health, and sex education (RSHE). We use social media as a space of solidarity, to provide resources and to raise awareness of key issues surrounding RSHE. This does not work in an unregulated space full of hate, misinformation, and mischaracterisation, especially when this very abuse isn’t held accountable. A big part of our work is teaching empathy, equality, and accountability, which a platform like X has repeatedly shown it does not seem to value.

Many educators and caregivers can find the news about platforms like X and AI usage particularly alarming, and we are right to be concerned. Our concern is what makes us hold these tech companies accountable, and demand action from our elected representatives. But in our personal lives, there are many ways we can reclaim our autonomy from these technological spectres.

Firstly, we must recognise that young people have a right to be online. Like any space, there is potential for harm. But our study with young people on their experiences online showed that it can also be an opportunity to access helpful resources, deepen relationships, and reach supportive communities.  Keeping them safe does not involve banning phones and social media. It helps school’s managements but erodes students’ trust and ability to access support. 

Secondly, we must teach young people how to be active bystanders. This means building their understanding of how they can look out for each other as well as themselves. Teaching proper media literacy assists this, helping them navigate online spaces safely and consensually. It’s crucial in preventing harm, teaching young people to be responsible members of their communities.

Finally, we must invest in inclusive, comprehensive RSHE. A key finding in our study, that RSHE is essential for young people to be equipped to navigate online sexual harm and abuse. Most importantly, better digital sex education is something young people are calling for themselves. They understand that knowing what their rights are and how harm is perpetrated allows them to become another voice who can identify when spaces, offline and online, are becoming abusive ones. When big social media giants refuse to regulate the spaces they control, our young people want the tools to self-regulate and keep each other safe.

Here are some things you can do to help equip your child to navigate online spaces: 

• Engage in judgement-free, continuous conversation with them about online spaces, their interests and concerns as well as harms these spaces may pose.

• Help them to understand these online spaces as not just social media but also as businesses with interests other than that of your child’s wellbeing. 

• Teach the importance of consent broadly to include uses of technology.

• Be open to considering your own uses of online spaces—we are all learning constantly as technology develops!

Speak to one of our unembarrassable team members to find out how our work can support you.