PROTECTIVE BEHAVIOURS FOR CHILDREN
PROTECTIVE BEHAVIOURS FOR CHILDREN
Protective Behaviours is a life skills programme and teaches children skills and strategies to help prevent them from becoming victims of abuse and violence in the community.
It helps children to identify safe and unsafe situations and gives them problem solving strategies to use when their physical and emotional safety is being compromised.
With the help of a manual and over a number of weeks, a practitioner delivers PB to groups of children, or it can be delivered in a one-on-one setting.
The programme content includes:
• Recognising and effectively expressing their feelings.
• Theme 1 – We all have the right to feel safe at all times.
• Learning that feeling safe or feeling unsafe is an internal process i.e. the physical signals within their bodies.
• Learning the difference between safe and unsafe secrets and how to respond when asked to keep an unsafe secret.
• Theme 2 – We can talk with someone about anything, no matter what it is.
• Developing a ‘safety network’ of trusted adults whom they can talk with.
• Learning about persistence - to persist in asking for help when they feel unsafe.
• Reinforcing that every person is the boss of his/her own body and the importance of using correct terminology for all public and private body parts.
• Helping children to distinguish between Safe and Unsafe Touching and what to do when being touched in an uncomfortable or unsafe way.
• Learning that they have a right to protect their own personal space and respect the personal space of others.
• Learning Assertiveness skills – the right to say NO, even to an adult, when their safety is compromised (children are traditionally taught never to say “no” to an adult).
Protective Behaviours is a life skills programme and teaches children skills and strategies to help prevent them from becoming victims of abuse and violence in the community.
It helps children to identify safe and unsafe situations and gives them problem solving strategies to use when their physical and emotional safety is being compromised.
With the help of a manual and over a number of weeks, a practitioner delivers PB to groups of children, or it can be delivered in a one-on-one setting.
The programme content includes:
• Recognising and effectively expressing their feelings.
• Theme 1 – We all have the right to feel safe at all times.
• Learning that feeling safe or feeling unsafe is an internal process i.e. the physical signals within their bodies.
• Learning the difference between safe and unsafe secrets and how to respond when asked to keep an unsafe secret.
• Theme 2 – We can talk with someone about anything, no matter what it is.
• Developing a ‘safety network’ of trusted adults whom they can talk with.
• Learning about persistence - to persist in asking for help when they feel unsafe.
• Reinforcing that every person is the boss of his/her own body and the importance of using correct terminology for all public and private body parts.
• Helping children to distinguish between Safe and Unsafe Touching and what to do when being touched in an uncomfortable or unsafe way.
• Learning that they have a right to protect their own personal space and respect the personal space of others.
• Learning Assertiveness skills – the right to say NO, even to an adult, when their safety is compromised (children are traditionally taught never to say “no” to an adult).