Kate Parker, Schools Consent Project

Kate Parker is a barrister and the Director of the Schools Consent Project.

‘The Schools Consent Project is a charity dedicated to educating and empowering young people to understand and engage with the issues surrounding consent and sexual assault. Our volunteers lead workshops around the legal definitions of consent and assault in secondary schools and youth groups’.

We spoke to Kate about her motivations for starting the Schools consent project and this is what she said:

I began the Schools Consent Project because I had to. I had too many friends who had been raped or sexually assaulted and I felt strongly that education was the only lasting means of prevention: the rest is just a sticking plaster.

If we want safer classrooms, safer workplaces, better juries we need to change the mindsets of young people.

Thankfully, the charity has attracted a wealth of talented, passionate individuals from all walks of life who are willing to donate their time and skills to the cause. We are organising ourselves to effect change and we are already seeing the results. In feedback, one girl wrote: 'they taught me it was okay to say no'.

I can’t imagine a workshop like this being held at my school while I was there and I find it so encouraging that this charity exists and this work is happening. Understanding consent and practical advice on how to communicate non-consent is invaluable for young people.

This work is vital and the reality of the lack of understanding and awareness around sexual violence was highlighted in the End Violence Against Women Coalition’s report which was published last month. The results from its survey of 3922 people shows ‘a worrying confusion both about what rape is, and how much harm rape does,’ some of their key findings include;

• A third (33%) of people in Britain think it isn’t usually rape if a woman is pressured into having sex but there is no physical violence

• A third of men think if a woman has flirted on a date it generally wouldn’t be rape, even if she hasn’t consented to sex (21% of women believe this). Almost a quarter (24%) don’t think that, in most cases, sex without consent in long-term relationships is rape (despite laws against rape in marriage being in place since 1991)

• ‘Stealthing’: 40% think it is never or usually not rape to remove a condom without a partner’s consent

• Around one in 10 are unsure or think it’s usually not rape to have sex with a woman who is asleep or too drunk to consent

In the light of the alarming findings of VAWC’s research it highlights the importance of the work of the Schools Consent Project, educating young people on consent. You can find out more, follow and support the Schools Consent project on their website, Facebook (facebook.com/TheSchoolsConsentProject) and Instagram (@scpconsent) and if you or one of your friends is studying a postgraduate degree in Law you can volunteer to run one of their workshops. For anyone who works in a school or is attending school you can request a consent workshop for your school on their website.

Kate has been on News Night discussing consent and the Schools Consent Project and you can see the clip here.

Thank you to Kate and The Schools Consent Project for facilitating and leading these important conversations about consent and assault.