Awareness campaign « Who said that ? » - January to May 2010

survey, stereotypes, awareness campaign, prevention, follow-up

Informative Campaign

Pupils of the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th secondary classes from all the secondary schools of the city of Seraing.

PREVIF, Service de prévention des violences de la ville de Seraing.
The dialog structure « Juvenile deliquency »

Belgium - Seraing

English

Young People.

PREVIF, Service de prévention des violences de la ville de Seraing.

(Violence prevention service of the city of Seraing)

The main aim of this public service is to prevent violence towards persons. In the framework of the work with the youths, PREVIF leads activities, gives social help and plays an interface role between the services concerned.



The dialog structure « Juvenile deliquency »

Conscious of the need to consider youth violence from a multidisciplinary point of view, PREVIF has chosen to gather the parties involved from the police, the justice and the youth of the Seraing city by constituting a dialog structure that gathers all the professionals of the issue : Arpège ASBL (Ms. Anne Bourguignont, honorary King’s attorney), the information and assistance Centre for the youth (CIAJ), the Violence and Trauma Centre (VITRA) of the University of Liège, the Youth Committee of the  Bar of Liège (non-profit association), the Company « En Marge », « la Débrouille », « Emergence » association, « Espace Tremplin » - « Compas Format » association, « la Maison de l’Enfant » (the Child Home), « the Youth Information » association, the Youth Parquet, the police of the city of Seraing-Neupré, the Help for Youth Service (SAJ) and the Judicial Protection Service (SPJ).

The objective of this structure is to share everyone’s experience, advantages and specificities, to communicate about the lacks and the expectations by exchanging practices.

With the support of the dialog structure, PREVIF has organised the « Who said that? » awareness campaign by the youths of secondary education of the city of Seraing, from January to May 2010.

 The “Who said that?” awareness campaign: five postcards to sweep aside stereotypes!

This campaign announced by display advertising follows a survey carried out in 2009 with 311 pupils of secondary education of Seraing on their perception of violence, in particular the violence from youths.

PREVIF wanted to go over the 5 behaviours that, at the time of this survey, have been underscored by the youths as not serious :

• Non agreed sexual contacts : “to have sex when the other doesn’t feel like” is considered by 13% of them as not or not very serious.


• Failure to give assistance to persons in danger : 34% of them consider that shooting an aggression with a mobile phone is not or not very serious.


• Resort to violence : if an unkown person has insulted them, 30% of them consider that a violent reaction is justified.


• Harassment : 90% of the youths questioned consider that insulting a friend is a minor fact.


• Image rights : 10% consider that publishing personal images of his/her boyfriend/girlfriend on Internet is not or not very serious.

The campaign aims to question the youths about the obtained results, through postcards :

• PREFIV has chosen a postcard format support that can be easily slipped into a folder or a homework diary, with lively and pleasant colours and with a different colour for each theme.


• On the recto, the expression “Who said that?” questions on one of the five behaviours underscored by the teenagers, with a humoristic illustration to catch curiosity; Example: “Who said that publishing images of somebody on Internet without his/her authorisation is not serious?”


• The verso calls to mind some principles regarding the phenomenon in question, in particular self-respect and respect of the others, the explanation of the consequences of any particular behaviour as well as the relevant legislation. In the case evoked, it is about the right to respect for private life and the image rights.


• The cards have been dealt to the teenagers, once per month, in order to give them the time to assimilate all the messages.


• Meetings between “PREVIF”, the teachers and the dialog structure have been planned to punctuate the campaign with other actions

More than 300 pupils of the schools of Seraing have taken part in the survey. Nearly 4,000 pupils from the secondary schools of the city of Seraing have been touched by the awareness campaign.

Classroom management, Teacher training, School conferences.

In 2007, when the target audience of the PREVIF service has been widened to the youths who have committed violent acts towards persons, the team wished to better understand the notion of “juvenile delinquency”.



With the support of the partners of the dialog structure and in collaboration with the "Centre Violence et Traumatisme – VITRA" (Violence and trauma centre) of the University of Liège that has brought a methodological support, PREVIF has decided to directly aim at teenagers in order to better know their representations of violence, especially the violence from youths, through a questionnaire-survey.



During the academic year 2008/2009, PREVIF has realised and shared a questionnaire to several 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th secondary classes of all secondary schools of Seraing, that is to say 311 youths.



The analysis of the questionnaires has brought to light 5 behaviours considered as not serious by the youths: non-agreed sexual contacts, failure to give assistance to persons in danger, resort to violence, harassment and the image rights.



These meaningful results have convinced PREVIF that it would be very useful to prolong the survey by the implementation of prevention actions.



In January 2010, the awareness campaign “Who said that?” has been launched in all the secondary school of Seraing.

Présentation des cartes postales et de l’affiche annonçant la campagne :

 http://www.mda-infodesjeunes.be/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=133&Itemid=1

Martine PRIGNON

INFOREF

Projects realization