I’m home. I’m tired. And I’m not entirely sure how I’ve managed to fit the last two days into 48 hours!!

On Wednesday I was in London, sitting in Parliament giving evidence to the Women and Equalities Committee about girls’ reproductive health, menstrual health and RSHE. An incredible day and one I’m still processing a little bit.

But there was no heading home afterwards because I had another job to do. I left London and headed straight to Bristol ready for the Best Practice Network annual conference yesterday, where I’d been invited to deliver RSHE training to more than 100 college tutors.

So, Parliament on Wednesday. Bristol on Thursday. And apparently I thought squeezing Old Trafford in at the end was a sensible idea too…

Taking non-fatal strangulation education into FE

My session in Bristol focused on non-fatal strangulation and suffocation (NFS) and, importantly, how we increase staff confidence to have these conversations with young people.

I’ve been doing a huge amount of work around NFS recently, and something I keep coming back to is that we can’t expect teachers and tutors to confidently address emerging and difficult areas of RSHE if we don’t first give them the knowledge and confidence they need.

Non-fatal strangulation, more commonly referred to as “choking” by young people, brings together conversations about sexual behaviour, pornography, consent, coercion, physical risk, healthy and unhealthy relationships and safeguarding. That’s a lot to navigate in a classroom, particularly for someone who hasn’t previously received specialist training around it.

So yesterday wasn’t simply about standing at the front and firing facts at 100+ tutors. It was about helping staff understand why this conversation matters, what young people need to know and how we can approach it through good RSHE without fear, shame or sensationalising it.

From learning it to teaching it

There was also something quite lovely about standing there yesterday and thinking about where this particular piece of work started.

Just over a month ago, I was sitting at Lancaster University attending a conference on non-fatal strangulation because I wanted to know more. I came home with pages of notes, lots of research to do and the beginnings of what has eventually become Gripped by Love, my KS4/KS5 resource and training around non-fatal strangulation, pornography and harmful sexualised material. And now I was in Bristol using that learning and resource to increase the knowledge and confidence of more than 100 professionals who work with young people.

That’s probably one of my favourite parts of what I do. I learn. I research. I work out how to translate something complicated into meaningful RSHE. And then I get to share it with other people so that knowledge travels much further than one classroom.

Bristol to Manchester…

Once the conference finished yesterday, I jumped on the train back to Manchester. After Parliament on Wednesday, travelling to Bristol, a full conference day and training 100+ tutors, you would imagine I’d get home, put my pyjamas on and collapse on the sofa. Absolutely not. I went straight to Old Trafford with Remi. United were playing West Ham and, after everything I’d squeezed into the previous two days, the least they could have done was give me three points. They did not. Thanks lads. 😂

What a week. ♥️

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RSHE training for schools, colleges and organisations

I deliver specialist RSHE training and professional development across the UK, including non-fatal strangulation, pornography and harmful sexualised material, consent, sexual harassment, sexual health, online safety and effective relationships education.