The Child Assault Prevention Project (CAP) is a charity that works to reduce children’s vulnerability to abuse by empowering them to recognise potentially dangerous situations and giving them strategies to get help. The work we do is very topical at this present moment as one of the areas we specifically look at is sexual abuse from a known adult. Our workshops teach children that they can say “No” to adults, even if the adults are in a position of trust. We also educate children that they never have to keep secrets that worry them and they have a right to keep telling until they get help. The work we are doing is unique and we have 20 years of experience in seeing how effective our workshops are.
We work with whole school communities running workshops with parents and school staff before holding the whole class children’s workshops. CAP uses role-play, puppets and guided discussion to empower children to be Safe, Strong and Free. By running the programme on a three-year cycle, we aim to reach each child twice in the primary school years. An additional Follow-Up Assembly is offered to help keep the programme fresh between three year inputs.
Over the last 20 years Devon CAP has worked in 430 schools- 54% of all Devon Primary Schools. We have reached over 61,500 children with our important messages most of these having repeat visits from the project several times in their school lives. CAP has also responded to community need and developed our project to deliver workshops in a variety of settings such as youth groups, secondary and independent schools. With a 5 year grant from The Big Lottery Fund we have expanded our geographical area of work to encompass Somerset, Plymouth and in Reading. Last year CAP worked with 8,000 children.
We have also successfully run a Special Needs Programme. Understanding that young people with special needs are much more vulnerable to abuse than mainstream children led us to put together a curriculum adapted to reach this group. We work closely with the school teachers, visiting the schools annually with our workshops.
As we all become more aware about the true nature of child abuse, CAP is happy to be working within schools towards a key outcome of keeping all children safe. CAP equips children with skills and strategies necessary to stay safe from harm and helps towards encouraging them to grow up to be strong and confident young people. Children have a role to play in their own safety and need to be taught that if anyone makes them feel scared or unsafe they can get help.
