Over recent weeks, many of the national newspapers have covered stories regarding a website called Everyone's Invited. The website features, at last count, almost 15,000 testimonies from young people - mainly but not exclusively women - surrounding their experiences of abusive encounters they have experienced in their lives.
Although the testimonies themselves are supplied anonymously, a number of educational institutions have been named as part of the stories and these have included some of the most famous independent schools in the country. Many of the stories are shocking and the cumulative effect is both concerning and depressing. The worst of the stories detail what is clearly criminal behaviour by the perpetrators and in many cases the police have been supplied with information around the incidents. However, even those incidents which on the face of it are less serious have significant and long-lasting effects on the victim of the assault. Of course also in the news last month was the shocking murder of Sarah Everard which brought home the grim truth that there is, for women, a sense of danger literally and metaphorically around every corner; dealing with it has to be a fact of life for them. In the focus of the white heat of the media spotlight have been independent schools. However, to assume that someone the problem is confined to these is to miss the point. The website’s founder Soma Sara, former privately educated herself, has emphasised that the problem transcends any one type of school; indeed the majority of the incidents do not take place at school itself though they often involve colleagues at the same or neighbouring schools. However there is no doubt that schools face the challenge of dealing with the consequences of such incidents, with victim and perpetrator on Saturday night returning to the classroom together the following Monday. Schools have come under scrutiny about how they deal with the situation, with the familiar blunt instrument of Ofsted being invoked as the solution. There have been accusations too that schools have worried more about their own reputations than dealing with the problem. It is impossible to comment on any of the cases of course because they are reported to the website anonymously, but school policies are very clear on what to do if such an incident is reported to them and in my experience are followed assiduously. The problem is that often the incidents are not reported. This may be because they were not on the school premises or during school time – it is not surprising that a huge number of the testimonies refer to parties that are awash with alcohol and seemingly poorly supervised – but also, worse, because some incidents are seen by those involved as a depressing and unwelcome part of life. The scale of the problem is daunting not just for those who work in schools but those of us who are parents or, frankly, members of a civilised society. Schools bear responsibility for tackling the problem of course, and issues of consent form part of most PSHE programmes at schools, but they can’t do it all. Parents too need to be proactive in dealing with it, and that means more than just policing parties more energetically. There is no doubt that most teenagers find the experience of discussing these issues with parents excruciatingly embarrassing, but there is no option to be squeamish. Bluntly, if parents do not talk to their children about sex and relationships then they will get their information elsewhere. At best, this may be from positive influences such as teachers or other responsible adults; at worst, it will be from the murkier parts of the internet where the messages about sexual relationships are far from healthy. It’s a tough job, but we owe it to our children to do it.