Respectful Relationships and Violence Prevention Forum

On the 1st of December, the Inner West Council invited two Fortians (Jadyn Chen and Aden Nguyen, Year 10) to participate and speak as panellists for the Inner West Council and Women’s and Girls’ Emergency Centre Respectful Relationships and Violence Prevention Forum.

The forum was held to discuss a whole-of-school approach to teachers, student support officers and school counsellors across Sydney, regarding issues surrounding healthy and respectful relationships. Jadyn and Aden were invited to speak at this forum, along with 4 other students in high schools across the Inner West, to voice the opinions and ideas of students.

The student panellist spoke at length about how the teaching of topics, such as consent and domestic violence, starts too late for meaningful prevention, and how these issues need to be treated at the same importance that bullying is within schools. The panellist also discussed the accessibility of support services for victims, both within and outside of schools, and how education and workshops on concepts, such as consent, need to be discussed in primary school, instead of leaving it to a one-off program in Year 9 or 10.

In addition to the numerous teachers, student support officers and school councillors present, Zoe Robinson, the Advocate for Children and Young People, was also in attendance and commended the ideas that Jadyn and Aden spoke about in regards to the stigma that surrounds the discussion of these issues within schools.

Overall, the forum was a highly engaging and informative session, with many new proactive and reactive measures regarding healthy and respectful relationships being shared across numerous schools.

We thank Tash Turner-Cohen, Aunty Jenny Thomsen, Matt Balane and Charlie Coorey from the Inner West Council, Moo Baulch and Sasha Brown from the Women’s and Girls Emergency Centre and Shellie Atkins from Relationships Australia NSW people for organising and facilitating this important forum.

Jenny Xu