INTRODUCTION
In July 2021 the UK government launched their strategy to tackle Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG). This new initiative came to a head following the abduction and murder of Sarah Evered on 3rd March 2021, by a serving police officer whilst walking home in London one evening. The attack triggered huge debate and public outcry about female safety and what more could and should be done to make women feel safer.
As part of the VAWG strategy, the government developed the Street Safe app Users can anonymously pinpoint where they are if they feel unsafe, whether because of a lack of lighting and CCTV or the actions of people around them. The Home office has also released a communications campaign Enough that aims to educate and guide safe strategies to tackle VAWG and associated behaviours.
Leading on from this the British High Commission in Nigeria asked Spearfish to run a series of VAWG personal safety training days in Abuja and Lagos. Both men and women were invited to attend, and we are happy to report that we had over 75 people attending one of our seven courses.
THE COURSE
Everyone wants to talk about personal safety techniques, but really these are a last resort and whilst we do cover them, our focus is always on prevention through identification.
First, we have to understand what we are facing so that we can develop simple day-to-day strategies to keep ourselves and others safe. The main areas we cover are:
- What are the THREATS?
- How do you manage the RISK?
- Situational Awareness
- Verbal and non-verbal communication
- Anatomy and Physiology
- Anatomy and Physiology
The foundation of the training was considering and understanding the question What is the threat? Whether you are going out for an evening or travelling to work, what and where are the possible threats that you or others may face? Once you have identified the possible threats, you can start to look at the probability of that threat occurring and what type of impact that would have on you.
This opened up great conversation and debate amongst the participants about how we may perceive threats and consequently grade the risk differently. The exercise was extremely beneficial and insightful and helped develop a wider understanding of vulnerabilities. From there we explored techniques and strategies to reduce our exposure to the threat and consequently the risk. Simple considerations like car park lighting, meeting room set up and where to sit, male/female ratios for working outside of office hours were a few of the many areas we covered.
Having identified the threats and assessed the risks we then looked at the reality of detecting the existence of a live threat. Understanding the situation around us is vitally important and it can be extremely fluid and fast-paced. Our trainers taught the participants about dynamic risk assessment of a situation and the physical and emotional effects that they may experience. Here we investigated signs that may indicate a threat or an escalation and considered ways to help us avoid and extract from a situation.
Despite our best efforts, there is always a chance that a determined individual or group may be intent on causing harm. At this stage in the training, we looked at anatomy and physiology and a wide range of physical personal safety techniques designed to aid in getting away from the danger as quickly as possible
AFTER AN INCIDENT
Understanding how you respond immediately after an incident and in the days and weeks after is essential for our course. What immediate actions do you need to take? Are you hurt? Are you safe? Who can you speak to?
Our teaching methodology has always been structured around facilitated learning. We believe the best way to learn is through group discussion and group exercise. Spearfish can assist you help you develop the techniques and give you the tools, but only through the conversation with your peers and colleagues can you start to understand how threats can vary depending on the individual and what measures you can put in place to prevent them.
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Personal Safety may become necessary in the course of our work and we can be better prepared to help ourselves and one another if we are all trained. I will feel more comfortable if I am in the midst of colleagues who are trained in personal safety. — Student on VAWG Training
If you would like to know about this course and please get in touch today.
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