Paisley YMCA
Together our group explored coercive control and how it impacts young people’s lives. Some of us met weekly and some of us shared our views in other conversations.
Group
Paisley YMCA
Organisation
Paisley YMCA
Location
Paisley / Online / In person
Category
Educate
Output
Posters & Animations on Coercive Control
Meeting Frequency
Weekly
What we made
We’ve made posters and animations to teach young people about coercive control. We know that people might think some behaviour is romantic or normal, when it can actually be quite scary and worrying. We’ve shared what we’ve learnt on our posters, including signs of coercive control and phrases to look out for.
It’s really important that young people understand what coercive control is and where they can get help if they’re worried, so we’ve also added QR codes to our posters to make getting support easier.
We want to live in a world where all young people feel safe and can have healthy relationships, online and offline. Talking, sharing and understanding are the first steps for this.
“Together we created a culture, with space for big conversations about how we treat each other, existing relationships, pals, families- it went beyond our group to other staff members and their groups too- everyone was involved.” — Youth Worker
How we made it
We met online during the pandemic and then in person when we could for ‘Social Circle’- which is all about chatting and exploring! We talked about everything: healthy relationships, gender roles, being safe online. Sometimes we used research or a picture or video our youth worker had found to get us thinking.
Some of us aren’t in relationships, so at first we didn’t think it applied to us, but when we got talking we realised how coercive control can affect our friends and even our families. We also talked to other young people at the YMCA, because we didn’t know everything! Our youth workers helped us put our conversations into the posters and animations to share with other young people.
