Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): With us today, and you are very welcome, we have Karen Devlin, representative from Women's Aid Federation Northern Ireland and Sonya McMullan, regional services manager for Women's Aid Federation. If either title is not accurate, please feel free to add the correct one in your introduction. Thank you for your time to present to the Committee. At this stage, there is no need for any preamble. I will hand over to you to make any initial remarks. You have up to 10 minutes, and then we will move to questions and answers.

Ms Sonya McMullan (Women's Aid Federation Northern Ireland): Thank you very much, Chair and members of the Committee, for the opportunity to address you today. I know that you have heard an awful lot over the last few months on this subject matter. We are coming from the angle of preventative education and early intervention, and we want to talk about that today. We are speaking on behalf of the eight local Women's Aid groups. We are a membership organisation, so we work for the Women's Aid Federation, and then we work for and on behalf of the eight local groups.

All of the work that we do around policy and consultation is based on talking to women, children and young people who have that lived experience. It is really important to bring the voice of those survivors into the room, and, hopefully, we will do that today. We know that considerable work has been done in this area. I have been with Women's Aid for almost 30 years, and we have been having the same conversations around relationships and sexuality education (RSE), going into schools and the challenges that we have.

The figures for domestic abuse in Northern Ireland are staggering. They are stark. A domestic abuse incident is reported to the PSNI every 16 minutes every day, and 25 women have been murdered since March 2020. The levels are really high, and that is the important piece for us. For over 40 years, we have been talking about these kinds of issues. We provide support and look to increase protection and safety for women, children and young people who are victims and survivors of domestic abuse. In the last financial year, we provided specialised support for 527 women and 291 children through our network of refuges, and 5,293 children had mums being supported in Women's Aid services. That is unbelievable as well. We respond to the needs of the people who come through our services, and they inform all of our work.

We have been innovators in preventative education through our Helping Hands programme, which some of you may have heard about. The preventative education programmes assist in prevention and early intervention. I suppose that a lot of the conversation around RSE is about looking at that post-primary piece. However, I feel that we need to be going in a lot earlier — in primary schools and early years — to talk about those issues of healthy relationships, safety and consent, of course, which can be discussed at an early age. We believe that education on healthy relationships should be on a statutory footing, most definitely. We also believe that our programmes in primary schools begin that journey for children and young people.

Over the last 14 years, we have been instrumental in the delivery of effective preventative education, focusing on schools' capacity to promote and safeguard the welfare of children and young people. Up to last year, we had trained 1,827 teachers in over 600 primary schools across Northern Ireland. It has been a great relationship. We are going into the fifteenth year and are really proud of that piece of work. We want to reiterate that and push it through at all levels, especially in primary school. The Helping Hands programme is for children aged seven to 11, which is Key Stage 2. We are building capacity in schools. We give teachers the skills to look for the signs and have the conversations. At no point in the Helping Hands programme do we talk about domestic abuse. It is not that programme. The programme explains that everyone has the right to feel safe; that others have the right to feel safe with us; and that we can talk to anyone about what is going on with us. Obviously, we have the "helping hand" image. Out of the programme come more disclosures in all those schools. We have to be proud of that.

It is a two-day programme. We take teachers out of the classroom and do the training for two days. Every teacher comes in with a family or a young person in their head who, they know, is presenting those signs. The programme assists teachers to understand the context. The Committee has talked about coercive control. People still do not know what that means. We have it in legislation, but we need to explore it more. The figure for peer-on-peer domestic abuse and sexual abuse in the 16- to 25-year-old group is going up, so something is definitely not working.

I am a mum of three — I have one teenager left; the others are in their 20s — and they did not have appropriate RSE in the school setting at all. There was no option to opt out of it or into it, because it simply did not happen. We did that in family conversations. We know that children and young people in our services are not living in healthy relationships. They do not know what that looks like. Let us allow them to know.

We sent you a link to our social action youth (SAY) project. A group of young people have come together who have been through our services in refuge and outreach services. They said clearly that they want an informed RSE programme, because they feel that those subjects are not being discussed. Domestic abuse is shrouded in guilt, secrecy and shame. Those children feel that it is their darkest secret and that they cannot talk to anyone about it. They think, "Nobody like me is in school", even though "John", who is sitting two seats up, might be experiencing it and living through it as well. They told us that they believed that healthy relationships education should include but not be limited to sexual health information, including information on contraception and abortion; healthy relationships; and abuse in relationships. Consent was a key bit that came through for them, for example. They talked about how to help a friend who is in an abusive relationship or a family who are going through that. They talked about having more information on coercive control, about being inclusive around LGBTQIA+ relationships and about guidance and support. They talked about bystander/allyship as well: what could they do if their friend was in an abusive relationship? How could they intervene or talk about it? That was really important.

We have had a lot of legislative developments, which we welcome. After COVID, we developed and went through all our programmes to make sure that they were trauma-informed, for example. One thing that came out of the Domestic Abuse and Civil Proceedings Act (Northern Ireland) 2021 was Operation Encompass. I am sure that you are all familiar with it. Its statistics come out only once a year, in May. Last year, Operation Encompass had over 23,000 referrals to schools across the North. That is unbelievable. We know that that is the tip of the iceberg and that not every person calls the police and goes through that process, so we really have to do better for our children and young people. It is a basic human right for our children and young people to be provided with this education at all levels, from early years through primary school to post-primary school.

We have to think of our children outside the school setting as well. We have to think of youth clubs. We were part of the healthy young adult relationships (HYAR) project through Ulster University, which worked with the Lagmore Youth Project. It was really powerful to look at the issue outside the school setting. Where else? Sports clubs. I am a member of a football club committee, and we have done a number of sessions on tackling violence against women and girls. It is in our Programme for Government as one of the key priorities, and an ending violence against women and girls (EVAWG) strategy has just been launched. So many elements are coming in, and there are definitely some good news stories.

We need to create the early years model. We are looking to develop our Helping Hands model to increase the understanding of feeling safe and to promote early intervention in statutory and community early years settings. We are really excited about that and are working with Stranmillis University College on it. We have a standing up for healthy relationships programme in post-primary schools. It is very ad hoc. It covers the areas of love, equality, trust, values, respect and the allyship/bystander model. It has been funded through policing and community safety partnerships (PCSPs) and things like that in our local Women's Aid groups. As I say, it is very limited and is not consistent, and therein lies the problem.

If we go back to the Gillen review — I sit on the training and awareness subgroup — we see that we have been having these conversations for so long, so let us just get on with it and get a really good model that works. I know that that is difficult when you hear all the conversations and everything that you have to consider. We want our children and young people to be fully informed. The women, children and young people in our services tell us really clearly that they want children and young people to know the difference between a loving and healthy relationship and the unacceptable behaviours outside that. We want to give them the confidence and ability to draw the line at abuse, which is really important for us. That is what young people, through our SAY project, say.

We need to be informed by women, children and young people, because they are definitely the experts by experience. I know that some young people came up for an evening event. Hopefully, you will be able to read about our side project. Young people launched a website that I encourage you all to look at. They also launched an animation last year that looks at a social action children's champion (SACC) and how all the professionals who come into contact with children and young people can be better and do that job better. They have been absolute change makers, and we are very proud of them. The website is amazing. That is exactly what they want young people to see. We are putting it together with the animation and the website as a training programme that will go out through the Safeguarding Board for Northern Ireland (SBNI), which helped us with it. Thank you very much.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Thank you. I want to start with Helping Hands at primary level. What I found really interesting was the dual approach of equipping teachers and their then delivering the programme. How important is it that we get that aspect right? We have touched on the issue of teacher capacity in the inquiry, but maybe not in as much detail as some other areas. From delivering and being involved in that programme, can you give the Committee an idea of how important getting that bit right is so that teachers are equipped to deliver the material effectively?

Ms McMullan: That is really important. I love delivering it. It is one of the nicest programmes that you can deliver over two days. For us, it is really important to get teachers out of the classroom. We go to another setting and have a nice lunch, sweets and different things, because teachers do not get out. It is a nice self-care piece for those two days. The relationship with education has been really good. The programme matches the core curriculum and ticks every box for schools. Some of our schools have embraced a whole-school approach. Newcastle Primary School, for example, has every child's hand displayed on an entire wall as part of Helping Hands, and it has a Helping Hands week. The school incorporates it. When we started it, it was done in P7 in the time after the transfer test. A lot of schools used it then. As children have developed, it has gone down to those in P5 and P6. It is a really good programme. We can send you the most recent evaluation of that, which Helga Sneddon did. The evaluations are so positive all the time — they really are. That is because of the environment, the way that it is delivered and the opportunity to ask questions the whole time. I spoke last week to a teacher in a primary school in Belfast who had identified 36 children in the school who were living in a home where there was domestic abuse. That is only through the Operation Encompass statistics. They are only the ones whom we know about. As I keep saying, it is the tip of the iceberg. What those children and young people are going through is really difficult. The issue of healthy relationships is a key component of RSE.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): That link to Operation Encompass is really important. It has always been in the back of my mind. It is great that that link is now there and that schools are made aware of it, but I sometimes wonder whether they know what to do when they have that information. Maybe that input from you will create a better framework for how you can provide support.

Ms McMullan: A lot of our local Women's Aid groups across the country are being contacted by schools every day, as are we, wanting that support, because of the numbers that are coming through.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): You listed them, so I will not go through again the things that the young people involved in your work have highlighted that they feel need to be included in a programme. In the previous evidence session, we touched on the question of whether we need to be more prescriptive, and we have had that discussion in various evidence sessions here. To try to tick those boxes for the young people who are saying that that is what they need to be learning about, do you think that the curriculum needs to be more prescriptive? Do we need to do something with minimum content?

Ms McMullan: Yes, but I will hand you over to Karen.

Ms Karen Devlin (Women's Aid Federation Northern Ireland): Are you specifically talking about coercive control, consent and things?

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Specifically, yes, on those points.

Ms Devlin: Our office gets calls from women who are in crisis because, if you google "Women's Aid", ours is the first number that comes up. I remember taking a call from a woman. I could tell from her voice that she was a young woman. She told me that there had been an incident the previous night and that the police had said that she should call us. She said, "But he hasn't hit me". I said that I would link her to a support worker. In my job, I do a lot of our comms, and one thing that I do is work on busting that myth that physical violence is the only type of domestic abuse. Two days ago, a woman emailed our office saying that she did not know whether Women's Aid could help, because she thought that we helped with only physical abuse. It is about talking about what coercive control is and about the different elements of how abuse forms. Without that knowledge, a lot of people never really click that what is happening to them is abuse and is an offence in Northern Ireland.

We repeatedly try to bust that myth. For example, in any communications that I put in social media, which is where young people get their news and where the vast majority of people get their news now, I will always use the words "domestic abuse" instead of "domestic violence", because people think that physical abuse is the only form of abuse. Sometimes you have to be explicit with consent, and sometimes you have to be explicit about what coercive control is. There is a way to do that and ease young people into a comfortable conversation. If I were to walk into a room of 15-year-olds and say that I was going to talk to them about consent, they would be incredibly uncomfortable, but there are training modules and ways in which any good facilitators will be able to ease young people into having that conversation. Consent to anything is about healthy relationships with everyone in your life, whether it is an intimate partner, a family member, someone who is your boyfriend or your girlfriend or a friend who treats you toxically and mistreats you. Young people need to have that information and need to know what it is called. Coercive control is what it is called in the law, and that is the offence.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I do not want to put too fine a point on it, because we have heard from a lot of different contributors on this. The curriculum probably provides scope to cover those issues, but it does not explicitly name some of that stuff. Would you like to see it named in the curriculum so that it is clear what needs to be delivered, or do you think that what we have is effective?

Ms McMullan: On coercive control, a child aggravator has been included in the Domestic Abuse and Civil Proceedings Act. We push for children to be seen as victims in their own right, although the Act did not go that far. Forgive me, I do not have the figures coming through Operation Encompass in the past year for the child aggravator, but they are very low in comparison. Coercive control is in law now. We have a child aggravator, and that is a good way of moving that forward.

Ms Devlin: We cannot skirt around the issue of coercive control. People in Northern Ireland are suffering with that issue. Approximately 20% of all crime in Northern Ireland is domestic abuse, and that is just the people who come forward to the police. It is a reality that many people are living with, and we have to be explicit and not shy away from talking about domestic abuse. It impacts on so many households, every society, every community and every race, colour and creed. Everyone is affected by it.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Thank you. Deputy Chair, do you want to come in?

Mr Sheehan: Thanks, both of you, for coming. I commend Women's Aid for the work that it does. I have had engagements with it in the past, and I know the fantastic work that it does in providing a refuge for women who are in real crisis situations. Thanks for that.

You may have heard me mention to the previous witnesses that some of the faith-based organisations and some of the Churches want to overlay an RSE curriculum with their own particular ethos. In my view, that creates difficulties in some areas of delivering an RSE curriculum. Most of the Churches have a particular view about same-sex relationships, transgender issues and abortion. Many of them are also patriarchal in nature and advocate, if not explicitly, certainly implicitly, a patriarchal society. What are your views on all of that?

Ms Devlin: We are feminists

and we fight. As an organisation, we are dedicated to creating a world that is safe for women and girls and to bringing gender equality through that. As a feminist, I can talk about patriarchy all day, but we are time-limited. We are a secular organisation with a feminist ethos. That is our ethos.

Mr Sheehan: Do you think that, in the delivery of RSE, those particular attitudes may be problematic?

Ms McMullan: They are definitely problematic in that context. As Karen says, we do not hold any such attitudes in a feminist organisation that supports all communities. That is where we sit. I think that RSE has been hijacked a bit in that respect. It sits very uncomfortably with me personally. I do not know whether I am commenting on behalf of Women's Aid. The point is that we need a generic programme that fits everyone so that all children get the same teaching, there is consistency across the board, and the teaching is not based on the school that you go to or the religion that you have. That, as I say, goes back to that basic human right of all the children in our community.

Ms Devlin: It is about bringing equity as well, because you might have one school that has a really good RSE programme and another school that might do the minimum. It is about, at the bare minimum, knowing how to keep yourself safe and knowing what a healthy relationship looks like with yourself, with other people and with everyone around you. I am personally about equity of access to information on what is safe and what is healthy. If you have a minimum standard for that knowledge and understanding, that benefits everyone — people from all walks of life.

Mr Sheehan: OK, thank you. Thanks for that. That is all that I have.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Thank you, Deputy Chair.

Mrs Mason: Thanks for coming today. Much as the Deputy Chair said, thank you for everything that you do. For the record, Armagh Down Women's Aid in my area is, without a doubt, the most important and most impactful organisation that I have engaged with.

You spoke about the Helping Hands project. You also mentioned earlier intervention than that. Can you give us more of an idea of what that would look like or where that would start?

Ms McMullan: Yes, we have started focus groups, and we did a workshop at Stranmillis with academics, early years practitioners and so on to look at how we could develop that. Dr Bronagh McKee, who was a lecturer at Stranmillis years ago — she has now left — did an evaluation/scoping exercise to see where Helping Hands would fit in the early years setting. We work with the childcare partnerships and deliver a lot of training for childminders, nursery school teachers and people like that. They have all been asking for Helping Hands for years, whereas we had been running the programme a little bit further up in relation to Key Stages.

From the evaluation and our consultations, we definitely see that there is the space for earlier intervention, so we are developing that. After that scoping day, what they are looking at will be developed as a holistic approach. It may be a little different working with children and families engaged in early years settings and promoting early identification and response to risk, so it is looking at developing a creative Helping Hands resource that builds on the core components of the Helping Hands model. We then hope to pilot the resource as a holistic early intervention, capacity-building approach with early years practitioners. Hopefully, that will be in statutory and community early years nursery settings and will be supported by a continuing professional development (CPD) accreditation. We hope that that will be up and running by the end of the year. A lot of the pre-work on that has been done with some key partners.

Mrs Mason: We are waiting for an early years and childcare strategy coming along, and it strikes me that this needs to be included in it. We are also waiting for a review of minimum standards from the Department of Health. I am also thinking about day-care settings that are private businesses, and, surely, they should be involved in any minimum standard as well. It is really useful to know that your resource is coming, and it is probably really important that the Department is reaching out to you in shaping what its strategy will look like.

The figures that you quoted in your presentation spoke for themselves. You said something about bringing the voice of survivors into the room. You mentioned survivors shaping the minimum content and what we are looking at in RSE. Do you think that that the Department needs to do that as well when it is looking at the curriculum and what it is equipping our children with? Should survivors and victims be a part of shaping what that looks like?

Ms McMullan: Our SAY project is run by the most powerful group of young people. I was with them at Queen's the Saturday before last. We were doing a piece around the family courts, and they are children who have actually gone through that process. It is heartbreaking listening to some of their stories. A lot of the work that we do with survivors has to be meaningful and valuable. It cannot be tokenistic. In the domestic and sexual abuse strategy, there is a stream around lived experience, and that is also in the Executive Office's ending violence against women and girls strategy. We are doing workshops with those Departments on that meaningful engagement with survivors and how to do that well. We are also working with the media and academics on how to work with survivors. We are doing a whole piece around that. Karen, do you have anything to add?

Ms Devlin: There is one thing. When you were saying that, it struck me that, when we were doing our consultation on the strategic framework for the ending violence against women and girls consultation, I interviewed women at various stages of their journeys, and one thing that we talked about was preventative education. The women were probably from age 20 to about early 50s. When I asked, "Do you remember ever learning in school about domestic abuse or what healthy relationships look like?", none of them said yes. They all said no. That is the reality of it. Domestic abuse involves shame, taboo and secrecy, and anything that we do in our consultation responses around engagement is informed by survivors. Survivors are telling us that people need to know what domestic abuse looks like. People see someone bring physically hit in a movie and think that that is domestic abuse. That is not the reality of it. In our society, when it comes to making roads safer, you consult the people who live in that area and ask how safe the roads are. You consult on any other aspect that affects someone in that area, and you consult anyone who has, unfortunately, lived experience of it. Survivors will tell us, "You need to change this to make it better for everyone else". With the young people in the SAY project, all they ever want to do is make the world safer for their friends. That is genuinely what one of them told me, and I will never forget it, because it is so important. That is why that lived experience is so important.

Ms McMullan: You also learn so much. We think that we are on the right track with a training piece or something, but we bring it to the survivor group and hear, "No". That is what is so important. It has to be meaningful and valuable, and the survivors really have to have a voice. With the survivor engagement toolkit that we put together for organisations, including the Departments, for example, I said, "We are rolling that out and doing workshops", and there are three survivors in the room co-facilitating that process. That is the real learning in the room. For our response to the RSE consultation in 2023 — I was going to say that it was last year — we spoke to a lot of children and young people in our services. Hopefully, the voice always comes into the room, but it is definitely a fundamental part of this. You need to listen to kids, especially in the delivery of something like this. It has to tick the right boxes for children and young people to be engaged, because they switch off pretty easily.

Ms Devlin: They know their peer group best. I like to think that I am young and hip, but I do not understand how hard it is to be a teenager these days. It is the reality of that.

Mrs Mason: That is great. Thanks very much. That is really useful.

Mr Baker: Thank you. As has been said, Women's Aid does amazing work. For us — no offence to the other groups — as we come to the end of our RSE inquiry, the best one comes last.

When we started the mini-inquiry, the biggest concern with RSE, for me anyway, was about our young people, particularly young boys and men, not understanding relationships. At the weekend, there was an incident in the area that I represent when a woman was out walking her dog.

Women walk dogs because they feel safer with a dog, but the dog was taken from her. She had jewellery taken from her, and she was hit. I have a young daughter, and I need society to change. I need the education to be there and to be the best that it can be. It is not just about what happens behind closed doors, where most abuse happens; it is about women saying, "I do not go out", "When I go for a walk, I put my keys between my fingers", or, "I phone my friend to let them know that I got home safely". I can go up a mountain if I want to go for a walk, and I jog wherever I please. My daughter and my wife cannot do that. The women in my life do not do it. They have learnt that in society. That is a sad indictment of the place where we live. It is getting worse, and that is why it is so important that a key component of the Programme for Government is ending violence against women and girls.

This mini-inquiry is about making sure that our young people get that education very early on, so that they see what it is to be in a relationship; how you should treat your mother, your sister or your partner; and all that. We have been getting it wrong for far too long. One of my biggest concerns is misinformation. I am sure that you see that as well. Last year, there was so much out there, with people saying, "Oh, they're going to teach our kids about pornography. They're going to teach kids about this". That elevated topics of so-called controversy, such as abortion, and the opt-out came into all of it. Then, what is lost? The education piece is lost.

That was my preamble. What more can we do to be better as men and as parents? What can be done in the school setting to make sure that our kids get that education, especially those who do not have a male role model in their lives?

Ms McMullan: Absolutely. That is so important and very well said. One of the key messages in the Helping Hands programme is that, even at an early age, we all have the right to feel safe but that others' behaviours can impact on that. It is so important, even at a very young age, to think about the people around you. It is great to see the commitment from the Executive Office — from our First Minister and deputy First Minister — to the new strategy. That is cross-departmental. It sits well with the Executive Office. However, that is only a starting point. As both of them said last week, we are at the start of the journey. We are only going into year 1 of a strategy that we never had. Other parts of the UK are going into year 13 or year 14 of such a strategy. What made us so different?

We are playing catch-up on RSE, given what is happening in other parts of the UK. We are playing catch-up on legislation and our language. The domestic and sexual abuse strategy was all gender-neutral. The gendered nature of those crimes was not talked about, when we knew there was a very gendered nature to them. It is welcome that the conversations are starting, because that is what we need to change society as a whole. We need to start those conversations in our communities. It is not all up to schools; it really is not. We have to be realistic about that. We need societal change.

Mr Baker: I have just one more wee point. You said that you are concerned about teenagers and how difficult it is for them today. I think of catfishing, images being shared and the blackmailing side of that. We had a major story on that this year. That is a real worry. I do not know that we have a handle on it.

Ms Devlin: I feel really sorry for teenagers these days. It is so hard to be a teenager these days. They have social media and all these societal pressures. It is a really tough position to be in. It is a tough time to be a teenager. They are bombarded with information, even if they do not want to be. That influences their peer group and how they talk about things. They are trying to navigate being a young person and doing the right thing, but their group of friends might be saying, "No, do this". They are bombarded by messages. A young person may not be on the internet as they do not have a phone, but their peers might be influenced by someone on the internet saying, "You need to do this, that and the other". It is so tough. It is important that young people feel comfortable enough to come forward. They may not talk to their schoolteacher, but they could talk to a coach in their football club or their swimming club or someone in another of the various outlets that children and young people have in their day-to-day lives. It is so tough

All that we — as a society, as individuals, as an organisation, as government or as the Assembly — can do is make sure that the resources, support and practical tools are available to children and young people. If I am doing a campaign on our social media that is specifically for an audience of children and young people, I need to make sure that there are videos and examples, because that is how young people learn. You have to speak the language of young people to help them understand and convey to them how to tackle situations appropriately. We could talk about catfishing, for example, and ask, "Why do you think that it's OK to manipulate or trick someone into sending you intimate images? What are you going to do with those images? Why is it OK to pretend to be someone and play with someone else's feelings? You would not want that done to you". The same applies to sharing intimate images. There is so much pressure on teenagers to do that kind of thing, but it is important that we teach young people not to pressure others into doing it. You can say to young people, "Don't send any intimate images", but we also need to send the message, "Don't pressure people to do that. Why are you doing that? That is not appropriate". It is also about flipping it and telling them not to do things that they would not want someone to do to them. It is about simplifying the language. I could probably say it a bit more coherently in another situation.

The reality is that it is tough being a teenager. It is about making sure that children and young people are prepared for life and, most importantly, feel safe, especially since the world can be just a phone now. Reflecting on that and making sure that there are appropriate safeguards and information for them is important.

Mr Baker: We have not talked enough about that. In RSE, we are talking about physical sexual activity, but it is about phones as well.

Ms Devlin: Yes.

Ms McMullan: A lot of sexual abuse that takes place is not physical contact.

Mr Baker: Thank you.

Mrs Guy: I echo everyone's comments in thanking you for the work that you do. It is so important. Hopefully, that goes without saying, but it is absolutely worth saying it to you.

We have covered a lot of ground already, so I will try to do something different and not say the same things again. You run a social action youth project. I read your briefing paper, which was excellent; thank you for that. It referred to bystander intervention training. I would like to learn a bit more about what that training entails and what it covers. I saw at lunchtime that a campaign was launched today by the PSNI and the Justice Minister.

Ms McMullan: Karen was there this morning.

Mrs Guy: It is really good. It talks about misogyny and calling out behaviours that are seen as just a bit of banter, but which are actually the first steps in behaviours that can escalate. In the previous session, a lovely phrase was used in relation to RSE and calling out those behaviours: "banter clinic". Is that covered in the bystander intervention training, or is that training more about helping people to report domestic violence or domestic abuse that they suspect or have witnessed? Does it cover all those things?

Ms McMullan: There is a bystander module in the post-primary programme. It looks at intervening safely. In the bystander model training, a lot of the women in our services say, "That is really unsafe. If anybody had jumped in at that time, it would've put me at more risk". It is about starting to think about disrupting those conversations. If you are in the changing room at a football match on a Saturday and somebody says something, people will follow. If somebody calls it out, others will say, "Yeah, yeah", and change that kind of situation. It is also about looking at allyship. It is not just about males, but we have to bring our men and boys with us; you do not want to push them away. We hear that it is not all men, and it certainly is not. The bystander intervention model is part of the whole programme. It looks at interrupting conversations and those kinds of situations safely, because you can put people at more risk by not doing it safely. We have to be careful with the bystander intervention. We talk about being upstanding.

Ms Devlin: I was at the launch today. I will not spoil it, but there is a social media campaign around it. There are four reel-sized videos with various discussion points. One scenario is two fellas in a car, and one starts to catcall a woman they are passing. The other fella says, "What are you getting on like?". Then, he gets out of the car and asks the woman, "Are you OK? Sorry about that", and walks away, upset. Another scenario is a woman being sexually harassed in the gym and someone trying to intervene. It is about having those conversations. The videos are very, very short. It is about asking, "Why are you getting on like that? That's not on".

It is about women being safe when they are out and about. There are women who carry panic alarms. There are women who, if something happens on a bus, for instance, do not know what to do. It is about making sure that people are aware that, if something happens, they can go to the bus driver or train conductor. If something happens in a school, they need to feel safe enough to speak to a designated teacher, for example. That all opens up conversation. There will definitely be conversations when those videos start going out on social media through TEO and the police social media channels. I love to see a group of teenagers reacting to and recognising that sort of thing organically. It is about the little things. If someone is leering at someone else on a bus and making them feel uncomfortable, regardless of gender, if I step in the way and that makes that person feel less uncomfortable — if I act as a barrier — that is fine.

There are little things that we can all do that are silent but that make such a massive difference to making people feel safer. For example, if I am walking down a street at night and someone is behind me, I am not going to walk too close to them in case they think that I am going to jump them or something. There are little behaviours that we can all do to make everyone feel safer. There are very few people in this world who are genuinely incredibly malicious. If there is a group of lads on a train and there is a young girl who feels uncomfortable, one of the lads could say, "Lads, maybe we'll walk down the train a bit more just so she feels a bit safer". Those are little behaviours that instantly make women feel a little less need to be on their guard. A lot of women will relate to that experience, because it is a reality. Anything that we can do to give people the tools and to be prepared is key, but it is about making sure that people know how to intervene safely and know where to signpost if something happens.

Mrs Guy: Is there advice there as well about online interactions? I think of my colleague Sorcha Eastwood, who has talked about her experiences of abuse. She spoke openly about incidents of threats and other things. The response to that has been horrific. There were people questioning the validity of what she was saying, assuming or wanting to infer that she was making things up or attention-seeking. The stuff that I have seen online related to that is absolutely vile. When you are doing that type of training, I assume that you get into that as well. You said that most people are probably nice in real life, but, online, they hide behind a mask and it goes to another level. It is horrendous. Do you have advice for people on that? Is it just that they should stay off social media?

Ms Devlin: As someone who looks at social media professionally and in my personal life, I see that some of the comments that people put under newspaper stories about domestic abuse or violence against women and things like that are really vile. If I saw a family member or one of my friends commenting like that, I would say to them, "I just saw you post that on a newspaper page; what are you getting on like?". People do not realise that, if you say something really victim-blaming under a post about a domestic or sexual abuse case or something like that, you have just closed the door on the person in your life who is suffering and will think, "They won't understand", or, "They won't believe me". That is the reality of it.

Social media can be an absolute cesspit; I get that completely. It is about navigating it in a safe way. If you know someone who is being inappropriate online, text them privately, calling them out and saying, "That's not appropriate. What you are doing is closing doors for victims and survivors; not opening doors for them to come forward". It is about people being thoughtful.

Ms McMullan: We, as an organisation, get a lot of abuse. I have had it personally. We have had advice. We have worked with Jim Gamble from INEQE, who is very good on that. He always says, "Don't respond. Mute everything, Sonya. Turn it all off". We turn off comments a lot, because there is nothing worse than having those kinds of comments out there. There are a lot of organisations doing a lot of work on online abuse. It is great to see a lot of changes being built into legislation through the Justice Bill.

Mrs Guy: My last question is a broad one, since you are our last RSE inquiry witnesses.

Ms Devlin: Ever? [Laughter.]

Mr Martin: Hopefully. [Laughter.]

Mr Baker: We will get it right.

Mrs Guy: You are closing the contributions. What is your expectation of what we should do with this mini-inquiry, now that we are drawing it to a close and will be looking to put a report together? You have given us your time. A lot of organisations have provided us with their genuine evidence. What is your expectation of this Committee? What action should we take on the back of the inquiry?

Ms McMullan: As I said at the start, we have been having these conversations for so long. Let us get it right. I will repeat that it is about a child's basic human right. We have children and young people living with domestic abuse. You know the figures; you can see them there. We need to make a radical change. It is not working. You have spoken to children and young people who say that they are simply not getting enough or any RSE. It depends on where they live or what school they go to: that simply is not fair; it really is not. Between consultations and oral evidence and all the differing views, you have a lot to consider and an awful lot of work to do. The one person who is important in this is the child or the young person. That is what we always have to remember. That is what I would take away. I think of the children from our SAY project and the children in our services and all their heads and voices. Like with everything else, other things can detract from that, but we have to remember who we are here for: children and young people; they have to remain the prime focus.

Ms Devlin: As I said, children and young people in our services want to create a world in which their friends are safe and they can enjoy healthy relationships with themselves and people around them. I left school 14 years ago. As Sonya said, we have been having these conversations for years. I remember the conversation happening when I was still at school. I dread to think about a 14-year-old who lives in this place and does not feel prepared or understand what healthy and respectful relationships look like. It is about not just the birds and the bees but the reality that someone does not have the right to mistreat you; to force you to do things that you do not want to do; to take your money; to call you this, that and the other; or to stop you speaking to your friends and family. It is about young people knowing all the elements of coercive control and what abuse looks like.

It is also about equity. Children and young people in the SAY project, as you can see from the resources, tell you what change they want. People come from different walks of life, faiths and beliefs, and that is brilliant, but there has to be a minimum standard. We need equity in Northern Ireland so that young people can enjoy healthy relationships with everyone around them, whether it is a familial relationship, a friendship or an intimate partner relationship — whatever the scenario — and have a meaningful understanding of what a healthy relationship looks like.

Mrs Guy: Thank you so much.

Mr Martin: Thank you for your evidence this afternoon, ladies. Your written evidence was excellent, and I have really enjoyed listening to you. You might have missed it, but we have been talking a lot about consent. You will not have heard the previous group. That group gave a figure that I found really startling, and I will give it to you. It is from a group that delivers RSE in schools. It evaluated some of its teaching for 11-to-13-year-olds, and there were 7,500 survey respondents. The group said that, after its programme, 87% of 13-to-18-year-olds had an increased understanding of consent and how it impacts on future relationships. That is incredibly positive. We have heard a lot of difficult things in Committee, but stuff like that is really positive. I want to take that on in light of something that the Chair mentioned to you. I will read a little bit of your oral evidence, in which you said:

I wholeheartedly agree. You continued:

I will give you a chance to respond, but my sense is that the curriculum standards are there and that it is about whoever delivers RSE, in whatever format at whatever level, just teaching about those areas — the Chair mentioned coercive control and consent — in RSE. There are three key stages, obviously, and some of the areas are more applicable to each of them than others, depending on the subject area and the fact that the teaching must be age-appropriate. Do you agree that the curriculum is flexible enough to teach this stuff and that it is just about getting the providers, whether they are schools or external providers, to cover those areas?

Ms McMullan: The key thing for me is who delivers it. OK? Depending on the organisation, delivery is very different. With our Helping Hands programme, we have the luxury of the teachers coming in to be trained. We recognise that that is much easier in primary education than post-primary. We spoke to teacher-training colleges, and a lot of teachers do not feel confident enough to deliver those subjects, so it would take a lot of training. There is no training in any of our teacher-training colleges on the delivery of this. It is a difficult subject: you are teaching science one day, and then you are going in to talk about this. A lot of children get that part of their education through science — biology — and nothing else.

Who delivers it is absolutely key: what are the ethos and values of that organisation? They are not the same across the board. Therein lies the problem: there are so many different organisations delivering so many different things, and it depends on the school, whether it is faith-based or whatever. It is so difficult. You have a real challenge in capturing all that from all the different organisations that come into all the different schools and what they deliver. For me, that is an important part. It would be better if one generic organisation delivered it. You do, however, have the benefit of organisations such as Cara-Friend that can deliver part of it. You can have other organisations that specialise in online abuse. You have to look at the specialisms as well. Our area of specialism is domestic abuse and violence against women and girls. There is space for organisations that have other specialisms.

Ms Devlin: I want to reiterate what you said. It is about preparing young people for the reality. There can, unfortunately, be different voices saying different things, but the impact has to be strong. We come as an organisation that combats violence against women and girls and domestic abuse. There has to be a strong, consistent message and equity in the access and delivery of information for all young people in Northern Ireland. We appreciate that the people who facilitate it may be survivors of domestic abuse. That prevalence is there. It is about making sure that the support is there for the facilitators, if they are impacted by that. The reality is that we need to create equity for children and young people in Northern Ireland in being able to access knowledge about what safety looks like, what the law says and how they have a right to feel safe in whatever relationship it is.

Ms McMullan: The Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA) dropped a lot of stuff about violence against women and girls on its resource hub this week. It is very good, but who has the specialised skills to deliver it in the classroom? People can pick up the resources, but, when we go out to deliver workshops and things about domestic abuse, we are the experts in that area, and we live and breathe it. You have a challenge in pulling those things together. We all feed into CCEA and the hub, but it is difficult and challenging to lift those things out when you are not trained or working in that area.

Ms Devlin: It is very interesting. Before Christmas, we delivered a session with teenage girls from a sports background. My presentation was about having a healthy relationship with yourself and valuing and loving yourself and who you are as a being. It was all about healthy relationships. I was talking about how no one has the right to make you feel unsafe. I could see that some of the young people felt uncomfortable, so, immediately, I thought that there was probably lived experience in the room. I adapted because of that. Unfortunately, if I did not have that knowledge and experience of adapting and engaging with victims and survivors, I could have said something that was triggering or upsetting, but I knew immediately from their body language that I had to change it up a bit. It is about adapting things to make sure that children and young people feel safe in that environment. I wanted them to feel safe while I was teaching them, and I was able to adapt accordingly.

Ms McMullan: We always get disclosures whenever we are out anywhere, no matter the age or profession of those in the group. There will always be someone who will come and share after the session. They might say, "That was me as a child". It does not matter if we are in corporate settings or wherever.

Ms Devlin: It is people of every age.

Ms McMullan: It does not matter. That is the reality and the extent of domestic abuse. The issue of specialism and who does the delivery is really important. Children deserve a consistent approach.

Mr Martin: That was really useful, and I really appreciate the example that you gave, Karen, about your knowledge and how you were able to pick up on some of those key body-language triggers.

I want to clarify something. In your evidence, you seem to suggest that the key aspects of some of the stuff that you deliver are already there and that they fit:

Is it therefore your view that, actually, the stuff that we are talking about, be it coercive control or consent, is already being taught in schools and that it can be taught without necessarily being mandatory? Your evidence seems to suggest that it can be taught at this point.

Ms McMullan: The fact that it is not being taught in all schools is the issue. If there was the opportunity to include coercive control and consent, given the recent changes to legislation, especially around the child aggravator, I think —. I suppose that it is subjective.

Ms Devlin: Talking about domestic abuse makes people uncomfortable. Talking about domestic abuse intersectionally, I always say that there is classism and all those other issues around it whereby people think, "We live in a really nice area. Domestic abuse does not affect our schools or happen amongst our parents". That is totally not the case. There is a vast spectrum: it affects every socio-economic class and every race, colour and creed. Everyone in society can be affected by domestic abuse.

It is about making it mandatory, because it is an uncomfortable subject. Some will say, "We don't really need to teach that. It does not really happen in our school: sure, we haven't had an Operation Encompass referral". That is not the reality that a lot of children and young people live in. To explicitly make it mandatory would stop people from thinking, "We don't really need that. We'll mention it briefly, but it's not something that explicitly affects us", when it does affect them; we see it coming in through our doors at Women's Aid throughout Northern Ireland.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Thank you. We will have to wrestle with those things as we come to a final report. I have the minimum content for Key Stage 4 in front of me. Every time I read it, I am struck by how high level it is; it affords a huge amount of flexibility. That, however, is a conversation for another time.

I hope that the Committee's real appetite to put on record our thanks for the work that you, as an organisation, do has been noted. We thank you for your time and your evidence.