Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Task and Finish Group - Public Meeting - Tuesday 10 February 2026, 6:30pm - Wandsworth Council Webcasting

Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Task and Finish Group - Public Meeting
Tuesday, 10th February 2026 at 6:30pm 

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because we're doing two meetings this evening,
so we wanna make sure we've got enough time for everything.
So I'm gonna pass over to Councillor Boswell
to do a little instruction,
and then I will do an instruction as well.
Good evening, everyone.
I'm Councillor Sheila Boswell,
and I'm chair of the Children's Overview
and Scrutiny Committee.
Welcome to this special committee,
the meeting of the Task and Finish Group
that's been arranged to give the opportunity
to meet with members of both Children's and Health
Overview and Scrutiny Committees to share the task
and finish groups recommendations.
This session is being held specifically so that both
of the overview and scrutiny committees can discuss
the findings, raise questions across the two scrutiny areas,
Children's and Health, and explore the recommendations
in a combined forum before they go forward
for formal ratification at each OSC.
So this review has been a substantial
and important piece of work,
drawing on the experiences and insights
of external partners, community organisations,
and most importantly, residents.
The task and finish group,
which has included cross -party representation,
has now completed its review.
So procedure -wide, following tonight's meeting, our recommendations will be considered at
the Children's Overview and Scrutiny Committee, and that's meeting at half past seven, so
that will happen this evening.
And then subject to approval to the recommendations will be considered by Cabinet at its meeting
on the 23rd of February.
Now the Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee will also be reviewing the report at its meeting
on the 24th of February.
And any further comments arising from that discussion
will be shared with cabinet members for their awareness
following the meeting.
This is so, because obviously it's a new way
of doing scrutiny, we've never done task and finish before,
this is to absolutely ensure that we've captured everything
from everyone on both committees when it goes to cabinet,
and because health is just that evening later,
there'll be another opportunity for cabinet members
to be aware before they make their decisions.
Okay, so I will now pass over to Councillor Lizzie Dobre,
Chair of the Task and Finish Group,
who will lead this meeting.
Thank you, Councillor Boswell.
Welcome, Councillor Worrall.
Before I welcome our guests,
I'm going to propose that we have members
introduce themselves when they speak,
but can I just ask if there are any additional
apologies for absence?
Yeah, Councillor Sweet.
Great, thanks very much. So I'd really like us to offer a warm welcome to members of our
youth council who are here with us this evening,
just over here.
You might remember that they joined us,
some of them at the last meetings.
We've got Kwazii, Elizabeth, Basma.
We've also got Georgina Crowley,
area manager for our Refuge Accommodation,
who's attending online.
We've got Mysha Sumer,
who's chair of our VORG Community Forum.
She's an advocate for violence against women and girls,
an amazing public speaker and has been really, really key
to pushing these issues forward in Wandsworth.
We're also joined by the cabinet members for children,
Judy Gasser, and cabinet member for Health and Community
Safety, Graham Henderson.
We have officers attending both in person and virtually
who will introduce themselves when they address the meeting.
So before we begin, does anyone have any declarations
of interest that they need to declare.
Okay, lovely.
So before we move on to the discussion,
I just wanted to acknowledge that this is
a particularly difficult subject area.
It may be upsetting for some,
especially given the prevalence of this in society.
And if anyone needs to talk about the issues further
after the meeting, then officers are available.
So just a little bit of background about the review.
I know we've got some newer faces joining us this evening.
So in August, 2025, we set up a cross -cutting,
cross -party task and finisher group
to review the prevention of violence
against women and girls.
On the review is, was Councillor Davies,
Councillor de la Sejour, Councillor Hedges,
who sadly can't be here, and Councillor Lee.
and it was a really great piece of cross -party work.
I think we all felt that this was a priority
across both parties and something that we really,
really wanted to explore a lot more.
The key part of the review was going out of the town hall
and listening to stakeholders, to residents in Wandsworth.
We spoke to over 300 different residents, teachers,
families, youth groups, young people
about violence against women and girls,
and the question is specifically
how can we prevent light -skinned women and girls?
So it's such a wide -ranging issue,
but we really wanted to look at
how we can prevent it upstream
and how we can stop it from occurring altogether
because prevention is better than cure.
We had an initial report that set out the scope in November
where we brought the two committees together
and we had some initial summaries of the conversation.
And the report sets out our key lines of inquiry,
our key themes and really seeks to elevate the voices of people that we spoke to throughout
the review, as I said, from survivors, young people, frontline workers, community led organisations
and it was just a fantastic experience getting out there, speaking to lots of different people.
So I just wanted to invite Councillor de la Sejour to offer some words from that opposition.
Thank you, Cher. I just want to start by recognising the TARCH Openness Group's excellent work.
setting out a clear practical roadmap for strengthening our
barrow's response to violence against women and girls.
And I'm very pleased that we've worked cross -party
to deliver this.
It's an issue, I think, where politics
must take a back seat.
This report offers some concrete recommendations.
I think it's vital that we now move quickly from discussion
to implementation.
So my thanks to everyone involved in shaping this report,
and I very much look forward to tonight's debate.
Thank you.
Thank you, that was a lovely intro.
Really, really appreciate that.
So can I first ask Kwasi, Elizabeth, and Basma
to just give a summary of the things that you told us
are about the review.
Over to you.
Last time we talked about the review,
main point of discussion was the use of social media,
how that impacts violence against women and girls,
but also how schools can work towards tackling violence
against women and girls through education,
through classes, to see how violence against women
and girls can start as early as ages from primary school,
10, 11, so on and so forth, and how schools can come
and battle this misogyny that might arise
with the youth because this pattern just starts
in early presentation to support women and girls
through their time in education,
but also how it can manifest and worsen outside of schools.
Thank you.
One takeaway we had was kind of recognising
the underlying issues we see within the education system,
particularly around misogyny and how negative influences,
even outside the classroom, for example,
influences you see online
and how they target young men and boys
and how that leads to people becoming indoctrinated
into believing ideologies which we frankly believe are false
and they spread hate rather than positivity within society
and the steps we can do to approach our young people
and incorporate both men, boys, women, and girls
in these conversations to ensure that violence
against women and girls is an issue that we address.
Because as you mentioned earlier,
it's kind of something that does get back seated.
And as a youth council, and I'm sure all of you here
will agree with us, that it's such a major issue
and it's really important that we address it
kind of from the root of the issue.
So kind of acting as a prevention rather than a cure
for an issue that becomes greater later in life.
and that will kind of help the development
of young men in our society and young women
into understanding that this isn't an issue
that they should kind of just deal with
and it's something that they should be able to speak up on
and it's really important that all of us are here today
to kind of speak about the recommendations
that have been made and how we can further this piece of work
into supporting the young women and girls of our society.
Thank you so much for that summary.
Any other views or is that the summary?
Hi, I'm Elizabeth. We also spoke about like de -stigmatising the entire topic
because loads of like young boys specifically don't realise they're going
down like specific like misogynistic pipelines or they don't understand
whether it's like cultural conditioning or whether it's what they've been picked
up from social media or whether it's stuff they've learned from their friends
or siblings or or the movies that they watch so it's making the conversations
less of a taboo and less of a feared topic and making young boys and girls understand
where those base levels of misogyny start and where violence against women and girls
perpetrates because it's easy to just jump to the worst case scenarios and jump towards
the highest extremities of this violence but it does build up, it is a foundational thing
and making the conversations open and less challenging
is really important, sorry.
Thank you so much, and I think, so, Councillor Lee
and myself came to speak to you at the Youth Council,
and one of the things that really, really struck us
was the kind of appetite of all the young people
we spoke to to actually have the conversation.
I think we heard from teachers and from others
that there's a kind of fear about how to start
the conversation, like it's quite a difficult subject,
but everyone that we spoke to in youth council
and youth groups, they were just so up
for having the conversation.
They had amazing ideas, both boys and girls,
and were already ahead of us in how they were coming together
to talk about it.
So I think the main message we heard
is not being afraid to involve young people
in the conversation as early on as possible
and ensure they're part of the solution.
So thank you so much again for being such an important part
of the review.
So next we've got Jordina who's the manager of our refuge
accommodation in Wandsworth and for those of you that don't know, refuge
accommodation is where women go when they are fleeing domestic abuse and it's
a form of accommodation that will stay in for a certain period of time but they
also receive wraparound support in that accommodation, so specialist mental
health support. Sometimes they just go as women, sometimes they go as families. So Georgina,
is that something? Are you online? Yeah. Would you like to come in?
Yeah, I'd just like to start by thanking you for having me here today.
We really welcome these recommendations here at Hestia and they reflect what we are seeing on the
ground and where the gaps belong. On the schools offer the emphasis on co -production with young
with young people is something that really feels important to us.
We feel prevention is most effective when young people recognise themselves
in the messaging rather than it being imposed. The focus on
shared responsibility and allyship is also key,
especially in engaging boys and young men and commissioning specialist
providers could help bring consistency and expertise into our schools.
Prevention works best when it happens early and is reinforced over time.
We often see families in our services long after crisis point, so anything that helps identify issues earlier in schools, housing or health is something we welcome.
In terms of the systems approach and recommendation too, I think this speaks to a real need. We have pockets of very strong practise but it is not always visible or joined up.
strengthening partnership engagement through the VORG Strategic Delivery Group and reinforcing the importance of programmes like IRIS -IFIL's essential, particularly for early identification in health settings. We also look forward to contributing to this further.
The recommendation around trauma -informed practise in housing is also something that really resonates with us, as housing is often a critical pressure point for survivors that we support.
We see first -hand where housing received that first disclosure and we need all professional responses to be appropriate.
This can make a direct impact to someone's safety and their openness to receive further support.
We welcome the opportunity to work more closely with housing and support this recommendation moving forward.
The focus on seldom her communities really reflects what we see.
Some families face extra barriers to getting help and trusted culturally appropriate support can make the difference between someone reaching out early or waiting until crisis.
We support the idea around tailored outreach and working alongside our blindfold organisations. We feel this is an effective way of tackling this issue.
We have observed in our services the positive impact that specialist support can have on someone's recovery journey, allowing people to feel seen and heard.
Overall, we felt these recommendations were practical, evidence -led and achievable, and we fully support them being taken forward. Thank you.
Thank you. That's really great to hear. And then finally, going to go to our Chair of our VAWL Community Forum, Mysha. Would you like to come in? Nice to see you.
Nice to see you too. Good evening everyone. I want to thank you so much for allowing me to speak.
I want to begin by recognising the leadership shown by the Task and Finish Group and by Councillor Dobras in focusing on prevention and early intervention.
Too often, VOGUE strategies focus only on crisis response, but this report makes an important shift,
acknowledging that if we want fewer victims in the future, we must tackle attitudes, norms and
behaviours that only allow violence to take root in the first place. And for a local authority,
choosing to focus on prevention isn't necessarily the easiest option. It requires long -term thinking,
sustained investment and political courage, but it is the most impactful choice you can make.
and through reading the report, I could see a lot of the agreements that I could relate to myself.
I am a survivor, but then I've also been on the other end of being a victim and receiving the support,
but then also there being a lack of support.
Today, I am the chair of the Violence Against Women and Girls Forum,
but there was a point in my life where that wasn't what I was, and I was a victim looking for support.
But through reading this report, I'm able to understand and I'm really happy to see
that prevention, early prevention is being championed in this because every time prevention
is delayed, another woman learns to tolerate harm and another girl learns to stay quiet
whilst another boy grows up without being taught accountability.
And this is why it's really important that the report as it does emphasises on early
intervention because it matters so deeply to myself and other survivors of domestic abuse.
And one of the strongest messages that I took upon reflection of this report is that harmful
attitudes develop early and long before violence becomes visible. And as a survivor, this really
resonates with me deeply because abuse doesn't just start with a punch or a police call. It
role, being normalised and often in childhood and adolescence. Also seeing the report focusing
on school, youth spaces, I received my help in overcoming domestic abuse through a youth
space in Tooting. That was my point of reach that really helped me to find my identity,
to find myself and to become the young woman that I am today. But that came through the
support of community and this also looks really important at the option of early education
being critical and if young people only learn about VOC, what harm has already occurred,
then we have intervened too late. So to summarise, I strongly support the report's recommendations.
I am keen to see the strengthening in prevention through education in school, also improving
partnerships, working across statutory and voluntary sectors, which is something I've seen
as a chair and also continue meaningful survivor engagement beyond concentration because if we want
to see the change that we are trying to bring forward survivors don't just want services that
respond well after harm but we want a future where few women and girls ever need those services in
the first place and this report is a solid foundation. I would also say it's a recommendation
that is acting on accountability, resources, but also continued survivor involvement.
And I really believe that Wandsworth can be that borrower that truly needs on vogue prevention.
Thank you for listening and thank you for taking this work seriously.
Thank you so much. Really appreciate you joining and sharing that.
It's really, really powerful to hear, especially given you do such amazing work,
chairing our community forum,
and also the insights you've shared with us
about your journey as a survivor.
I know that's not easy to share,
no matter how many times you do it.
So thank you so much for everything you've done
so far for Wandsworth.
So now I'm gonna open it up to discussion.
I'm just gonna start with any task finisher members,
either online or in person,
and then I'll open it out further.
So yeah, Councillor Davies.
please.
Yeah, I found it really interesting
being a member of this task and finish group
and in sort of like hearing from people directly
or reading the report.
And I've realised, I mean, I went to quite early on
to a meeting with the parent champions
and what I found is we didn't really know
exactly what our thoughts were immediately,
but people certainly felt that women and girls
were sometimes sidelined, and so that could be
tackled very early on in terms of prevention,
and they felt that that was part of it.
But what was really wonderful is the way
that they really engaged in the process,
went away, had conversations with their own children,
girls and boys, and then that led to more conversations
and going on, and I think that's really sort of emblematic
to what's happened in this process.
You know, what's really stuck with me
is what the Youth Council was saying to us today,
and last time you spoke about the, you know,
give us something to do, and then let us get off
that social media and minimise the time there.
I hope that's something that we'll be able to do.
And yeah, and the importance of leading by example,
So for all of us, whoever we are,
we're making the conversation open
and we are being brave in tackling it.
And we are trying to set the tone about what's accepted,
what is normal again.
And also thinking about the different experiences
and expectations of different generations
or different communities.
And so certainly my understanding and my learnings
have evolved from this.
So, yes, it's been a very good process.
Councillor, thank you, Councillor Davies.
Anyone else before I open up?
Great, okay.
Any questions from members of any of the Health
or Children's Committee or comments, reflections?
Any additional questions for our Youth Council members?
Yep, Councillor Boral.
Thank you, Chair.
So first of all, just to recognise the amount of work
that's gone into this from everybody
on the Tasking Finish group, as well as officers,
and a big thank you for the work that's actually been done.
And I also want to recognise the potential,
as you were saying earlier, the personal impact
that this has on people and how triggering it can be
for some people, depending on the circumstances
they've been through.
So a big thank you for that.
I also welcome in the paper the fact that you're
I'm picking up some work with boys and young men
and men around the toxic masculinity
and the misogyny that's out there,
especially in the social media.
I often worry with work.
Everything is shifted onto the women
and actually not going back to the root cause,
which is actually men's attitudes.
And so I welcome that.
I just wanna pick up on theme five,
which is on page 14 of the paper.
And a couple of paragraphs here,
which just as opposed to the highlight of the comments,
I really welcome the aspect of that we need more training
around a culturally competent approach.
I think that's really important,
especially some of the areas that are highlighted in here.
Paragraph 55 is about honour -based abuse.
It would be useful to see that
in its widest interpretation,
because I think we often just think
in terms of a marriage context,
but we can actually see that sometimes it can be,
for example, as I've said to you before,
older women being violent to younger women
in a family situation, passing on the message
that actually violence is acceptable
in order to preserve the relationship that you're in,
or in some aspects is that if a woman joins another family
then somehow she's in that servant mentality in some way.
So, as I said, the interpretation of that,
I also recognise that takes us into very difficult areas
and very, and quite frightening areas for a number of people.
Hence, the emphasis on the cultural competence approach
are really welcome, and I'm glad to see that.
And as I said, overall, I think this is a really good paper
and a really good approach.
And no matter what happens in the elections
later on this year, it's really important
that this gets embedded in all our workings
and all our committees, not just in health,
not just in everything, but recognise that it
has an overarching, whether it's in housing,
whether it's the other committees,
this is core to the work that we actually do.
Thank you, Councillor Royal.
I think Councillor Owens, you had a question.
I don't know if you still have it.
Yes, thank you, Councillor Owens, Northcote Ward.
Thank you very much for your presentations.
It's been wonderful to read this final version of the report.
And I've always, I think last time I raised this,
and I've always been interested to hear your views on,
and the committee's views on this business
of social media and mobile phones.
I do think social media should be banned.
Look at what has happened in Australia recently.
It's absolutely fantastic.
They have no access to Snap, Insta, TikTok, et cetera.
I have two teenagers.
one is 14, one is 17, both boys,
they go to two different ones with state schools,
one in Tooting, one in Battersea.
One of them has no access to social media.
I allowed him 10 minutes of Instagram,
I looked at what he was looking at,
it was unbelievable.
Misogyny, racism, et cetera, et cetera.
I thought he'd be looking at pictures
of his older cousins in their 20s, he was not.
It only takes seconds.
So my question is, we have schools in our borough,
and I think I've raised this before,
I cannot understand, and I am on another
Task and Finish group where I visited
some primary schools recently where they allow phones.
Wandsworth Community Schools allow primary school children
to have phones in the school.
I would have thought at the very least
that we could, as a council,
have a policy of no phones in schools.
But that's just one point on that.
And also on clubs, I recognise you're saying
that obviously you'd like to have more activities.
Why don't the schools all provide after school clubs?
but everybody has to do one an evening.
You know, it's very straightforward and simple.
Just initial thoughts, thank you.
Thanks very much.
I don't know, Councillor Gatter,
if you wanted to talk about,
because I know that you and Sheila are looking at
kind of this idea of what we can do around social media
and phones in schools.
I don't know if you want to touch on that.
Yeah, we have been talking about it amongst our group,
but we haven't actually reached an agreement, actually,
because there are different views each way,
and I know some of our officers don't think
we should actually be banning phones in schools,
so I think that is something we need to talk about
together with the school community, with the heads,
with all of us, you've got a strong view,
I've got a strong view, but maybe we need to come
to some sort of consensus together,
and also, of course, listening to the young people,
I'm sure you've got views about what you see in schools.
Absolutely, and then I think you're talking
about after school clubs.
We are trying to encourage as many more new activities
as possible.
we are sending play rangers out into the states,
we have new community sports workers,
we're investing in our youth services,
absolutely great, we wanna get young people
off their phones and out having fun
and the things they enjoy, absolutely.
I would be really interested, yeah,
to hear what some of the youth council members
think about some of the phone and social media policies.
I would like to add about school and after school clubs,
because we shouldn't put this responsibility
just to schools to provide clubs and extracurriculars,
but also there's the responsibility of the community
and where you live, because some children don't want
to be in the same environment as their schools
for whatever reason.
Maybe they don't want to see particular children,
other peers in these clubs.
So as well as having after school clubs
through the schools, there must be clubs and activities
through the community.
Personally, I live in Southampton,
and I know BACE as a youth club that's very popular,
but that's not enough.
There needs to be a variety which helps children
to pick up new hobbies, rather than just being
one general youth club, and instead,
there should be a breadth so that children can find
and their community and have no reason to be on their phone,
have no reason to be victim to algorithms
which do encourage the idea of misogyny.
And having these clubs and access to these activities
through communities, through schools,
is a good way to encourage that.
Thank you.
I kind of wanted to recognise your point
about kind of banning social media in schools.
in schools, I think whilst you raise a good point
about young people kind of being susceptible
to seeing things that they fundamentally shouldn't,
and I agree with you that it's not great
that a young person should be able to access
like certain pieces of information,
but I think one thing you kind of fail to recognise
is that as we progress in society,
young people are going to have to fundamentally
have to learn to challenge such ideologies,
and it's not, I don't think the way forward
is necessarily just cutting that off completely
and saying, no, you can't access this information
because it kind of, it mitigates your ability
to learn about several other things
that you can find on social media.
For example, you can go on TikTok and find someone revising
and that kind of encourages you to do better academically.
But if we are just cutting off social media,
young people lose their access to being curious,
being inquisitive and challenging such ideologies
and things that they see online every day.
So whilst I recognise that you've raised the point
of the negatives about social media,
but I think you fail to recognise the positives we have
and what we can do going forward.
So rather than necessarily having a ban,
in terms of education, young people should be
employed more to learn about these topics
and why people may think the way they think
so that they're able to formulate their own argument
and, like I said before, challenge such ideologies.
and kind of progress together,
because I think one of the recommendations
or just part of engagement with stakeholders
talks about how kind of young people are online
and they're only accessing this information alone.
And they're not with other people,
but through education,
we have the power to empower our young people
and teach them together
to be able to challenge these different ideas.
Thank you.
And I think, Andy,
did you just want to come on a brief point
and then I'll go back around.
Yeah, just make a brief point.
and the new Ofsted framework,
which was introduced in November,
there is actually mention of phones
and how schools manage them,
and you'll know there's been a lot of publicity
about whether schools should ban them completely.
The Ofsted framework doesn't say
that schools should ban them completely,
but they will be judged on how they mitigate
negative impact on their cohort and how they manage.
And I think that a colleague over there
I'll put it in a very articulate fashion
that actually it's about learning appropriate use
and also being able to challenge what's there
because when children go home,
often they will have access to devices
and this kind of material anyway
and it's about the reaction to it and the challenge to it.
Thank you and I think Irene, you had a question
and then Councillor Burchard, did you have one?
Thank you, Irene Wilson here,
my co -opted to the Children's Committee.
One of the things that struck me on reading this
was the emphasis in theme one about how education
on relationships and violence can feel like a one -off event
and I think that's a very big issue with anything,
frankly, that people want to do projects
and be able to tick something off
and it's not consistent over the years.
I was a bit disappointed, therefore,
to see the recommendations.
So recommendation one has a perfectly good recommendation,
but then says this could be supported
through measures such as creating a video.
Now I'm sure creating a video is a very good idea,
but again it's an example of a one -off event
where actually we need consistency.
A video takes what, a month or two to make?
A childhood takes 10, 15 years.
Really a month is not that much in that context.
So that was just my reflections on reading that
of somehow managing to be able to get consistency
which is extraordinarily difficult
when you're trying to do sort of policy and so on.
I do appreciate.
Thank you and just to come back on that.
Yeah, these kind of first initial recommendations
I guess are an overview and then the action plan
that kind of goes behind them will do exactly that.
or set out exactly what interventions
might need to happen in schools.
And the video is kind of one example
of something that was brought up at the Youth Council,
but I absolutely agree.
It's reversing away from that one -off workshop
and into year on year,
how are we embedding these conversations in schools
over and over again in youth groups, et cetera.
So thank you, that's a really important point.
Did I have another kind of question
that you wanted to come back on or?
Yeah, I'd like to return to Councillor Owen's point. I disagree with what Quasie said. I
do agree with you about I feel like schools having a blanket rule, whether that blanket
rule is schools' phones out, phones taken, or just not bringing them in at all, is genuinely
much more beneficial because I understand how much social media dictates young people's
but I feel like we need to completely not normalise this.
Young people no longer have hobbies
in which they are as committed to.
They are no longer as inclined to be going outside,
to be seeing their friends,
because they can just call them instead,
or they're less inclined to go out and join a sports club,
or do some kind of extracurriculars.
And I feel like schools is a good place,
because given that all people, all young people,
are in compulsory education,
it's a perfect place for you to be giving these kids
extracurriculars and super curriculars
and enrichments that can nourish them
in ways outside the classroom,
in ways that they might not afford outside of school
or they might not know about youth groups.
Most people around my age
aren't actually that aware of youth groups,
so even though they're putting on brilliant things,
most young people aren't very aware of them,
so having schools provide those could be brilliant.
And also, having that social media blanket rule in schools
would, it reduces bullying,
it reduces students that would get mugged on the street
because if you know a ones with student
isn't carrying their phone,
they're less inclined to get stopped
or harassed in any way.
On your way to and from school,
you're less inclined to be on your phone,
scrolling, scrolling, scrolling.
The algorithm is designed to keep you in it
no matter what your age is.
So having young people not be used to going on their phones.
I can speak on behalf of my peers here.
We all, I'm pretty sure, have our phones on us right now.
Like, it's really bad, and I think everyone
can acknowledge that, but then you're thinking,
how do we actually stop that from happening?
How do we stop the first thing a student does
when they leave the school gates is pull out their phone,
stop allowing their, when they go home,
they're less inclined to reach for their phone
because they haven't had to use it the whole day.
So making social media, making their phones
less accessible to students does actually
influence them in the long run.
It encourages them to pick up a book,
pick up a hobby, pick up a club, go outside,
meet their friends, have some friends,
do things outside of their phone
because so many people, like, although I do agree
that there are things beneficial that you can get
as a young person from social media,
they should not be your number one form
of encouragement to study, or,
I understand that social media does also help you
to decipher and develop on your skills
to be able to identify what is right and what is wrong,
and you be able to have that independence
to establish that, but you can figure that out
from other ways.
You can learn your rights and wrongs from talking to people,
from meeting people, from having one -on -one personal
connexions, and I feel like we need to stop allowing
students to be influenced by their phones
and come in contact with them as often.
Sorry.
Thank you so much.
Really, really articulate.
And I do, I mean, it looks like nationally something
may be coming on that, so it'll be really interesting
to see if there is national guidance on that.
I'm gonna come to you, but Nabila, you've had your hand
up for a while, so come to you first.
Yeah, that's fine.
I just really want to echo what Irene said about the recommendation.
And I can see clearly recommendations link with the theme and principle of effective
prevention.
However, I just wonder what are the specific accountable action, dedicated resources, including
budget, and measurable outcome that will move them from proposal to implemented reality.
Thanks.
Yeah, absolutely.
So just to give a bit of context about what the task
of Finishing a Group can and can't do,
I would have loved to do all of that,
but what happens is this gets sent to cabinet,
and then if they accept the recommendations,
we can then develop an action plan,
which again will lay out all of the resources,
hopefully some really clear timelines
about exactly what those interventions are,
and then we can bring it back to committees again.
So yeah, I completely agree with you.
we're just recommending as much as we can at the moment
and giving a cabinet the best evidence
so that they can make the decision.
But thank you very much.
Councillor Sweet.
Thank you, Chairman.
And I just want to also acknowledge that
it's a great privilege to hear from these young people
so articulately explaining what it's like
in Wandsworth at the moment on this issue.
I'd actually like to just back up
what the co -opted members have said.
There's lots of great content in here.
We've clearly done a very good listening exercise, consulting very widely.
Seems hundreds of people literally have been spoken to.
But I'm struggling to see what is going to be done that's actually different from what's
already going on.
Some of the language in the report actually makes clear that this is about consolidating
existing activities rather than doing things differently.
and Appendix 2 has the eight principles of effective prevention against which it
seems that we're saying these themes already apply. So I guess I think it's
such a serious and important issue and I'd like to understand how we go from
this report to a really firm list of actions that is different from what's
been done before. Yeah absolutely and I'm as committed to that as you are
and that's the suite, I think.
There's so much we could do.
I think what struck me when going through all the evidence,
you know, there's absolutely a whole host of things
that we could do.
And I think what really needs to happen
after Cabinet hopefully approves the recommendations
is we prioritise an action plan,
what can happen in the first three, six months,
what can happen in the longer term,
given budget and resources available.
But there's a whole host of things that we could do,
ranging from extending the RSI programme,
which is training GPs in Wandsworth in vogue awareness,
so that when you're having conversations
at that first point of contact,
right through to improving the way we embed
domestic abuse in our housing teams,
right through to some of those more long -term interventions
around training in schools and teachers,
and I guess it's a case of appetite from cabinet
after we give them recommendations,
prioritise, create an action plan,
but we will absolutely come back to committees
with the action plan to get your input,
but thank you for raising that.
Councillor Owens.
Thank you, and just to thank you for your points
that you made, and I don't want to keep banging on
about phones, but I've had five instances
of children in my ward in the last couple of weeks
who have been mugged for their phones,
three of whom were with knives,
and they were all going to and from school,
I do think it is a huge problem, particularly on the
violence against women and girls, particularly on the
photographing of girls.
That's another thing that's not talked about.
If the boys didn't have the phones, or the girls,
you wouldn't have some of the problems we now have of girls
photographed in silly positions, vulnerable positions,
et cetera.
I don't really understand why schools can't ban them,
but I won't say anymore, thank you.
Thank you. Do I have any other questions?
Oh, yeah, Councillor Gasser.
I was just going to say I hear how very important this is to everybody in this room and we do
have to take it forward and obviously you have in mind an action plan. So I don't know
if you've been invited to come and talk to Cabinet when we discuss it or if you haven't,
I'm inviting you or whoever can attend. So come and tell us, tell the whole Cabinet exactly
how it is and I will be speaking with you.
And let's try and get a real big commitment
from the cabinet and if we can find any money,
let's spend some money on this.
It's really important.
Great, I'll hold you to that.
Any other questions, final comments?
Oh, yeah, do you want to come back in?
I was just gonna ask kind of quickly,
one of the recommendations is about a video
co -produced with young people.
I just wanted to know how do we ensure
that young people are actually incorporated into this
and their voices aren't kind of sidelined?
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, one of the things that came through
when we spoke to the Youth Council
and when we spoke to a couple of football groups,
men and boys, is they have better ideas than us,
quite frankly, about how to land these messages
with young men and boys and young girls
in a way that coming from me or someone else
of a different generation, it just wouldn't land.
And I think there's something about A,
having the right kind of role model
to deliver that kind of training
or to deliver the right messages to young people,
but B, actually keeping young people involved
in actually developing videos, training, et cetera,
and having it something that's kind of held.
So I personally, again, don't wanna preempt
the kind of specifics of the action plan,
but would see forums like the Youth Council
and other ways we engage with children
and young people across the borough,
being like a kind of core mechanism
by which we develop any kind of materials with,
along with other groups.
Do you wanna come back in?
Yep.
I'm sure this is in here.
I just haven't managed to read through it fully yet.
But what's, like how do you guys plan
on tackling religious and cultural influences?
because I feel like that can be more difficult to address,
but it's also something that I feel like is,
because we've spoken about issues with the youth,
but religious and cultural influences
that uphold these standards and perpetuate this
and the violence and the normality of it,
like how do you plan on tackling that?
A really, really important issue
and kind of speaks to what Councillor Borrow was saying
at the beginning of the meeting.
We talked a bit about on the base to abuse in the report,
But from my kind of experience working at Women's Aid,
the best way to provide the right support
is by working with specific groups
that have specific networks and understanding
that are culturally competent
to go and speak to communities,
again, so that we can make sure
that any training conversations are had
specifically speak to the people in those community groups
in the way that's most supportive,
most evidence -based as possible.
So a way, for example, that I would like to see that improve
is the council working with groups that are run by and for women.
So sometimes larger providers don't necessarily have women or girls
that speak the right language as survivors and victims entering their services
and that can kind of put women off kind of coming forward.
So I'd really like to make sure that all our services
do you have the right translation, for example,
to have those conversations,
and I would like to work with those organisations
to make sure we are going out into the community
with faith leaders and having those conversations,
but in a kind of culturally competent and aware way
so that it is sensitive.
Do you wanna take one more question
and then we're gonna wrap up?
I would like to highlight in theme one, paragraph 25,
I have a big part of using the youth
to tackle violence against women and girls
is it said not just assembly,
assemblies when talking about these topics.
And I really do think that encapsulates the whole
journey this has to take because the problem
with having assemblies, with having these
surface level lessons is that there's a power dynamic,
there's a power structure that these masses of students
sitting down and passively taking in this information,
passively listening, and there shouldn't be
that power dynamic.
It should be a normal natural conversation.
It shouldn't be a special instance to talk about
the reality of being a gal, being a woman in one,
and in the world, it should be,
having it as assemblies, having it as lessons
is what makes it a taboo subject,
because you expect to sit down and be lectured on this,
but it shouldn't, it should be an open conversation.
Men should be curious about, okay,
how am I being a bystander?
How is my role, what I'm doing now,
or helping, or being a bystander?
not helping women and girls in Wandsworth.
And making that reform, how we're communicating this,
we're in schools, is what's so salient
because that power dynamic is what doesn't allow the,
or allows violence against women and girls to continue.
And instead, we should deconstruct the taboo
that is surrounded by this topic.
Thank you.
Yeah, thank you for being so articulate and so eloquent.
And I completely agree.
When we went to go and speak to a young group of boys
who are part of a football group,
they said that it was the first time
that anyone had ever asked them
about violence against women and girls,
that they'd actually never ever had a conversation
about it at school,
that they'd had a kind of brief conversation
about healthy relationships
as part of their sex education,
but it was by their PE teacher and no one was listening essentially.
So having spoken to some of the teachers and head teachers,
they really vary in how empowered they feel to hold these spaces,
to hold these conversations.
Some of them feel really confident and really able to do that
on a more regular basis, some don't.
So I think something I'd really like us to do
is think about what the council can do to fill that gap
where schools don't have that in -house knowledge and understanding.
But also again, think about who the right messenger is.
So again, is it, are you gonna kind of resonate
if it's someone that maybe you don't look up to
or someone that maybe hasn't been through
the same experiences as you?
Some of the boys we spoke to mentioned
safe drive, stay alive.
I don't know if you still do that,
but at school it kind of really shocked us
into car accidents and stuff like that.
And they suggested a kind of programme
almost led by survivors or women who've been through it
going into schools and speaking about it
so that they take seriously the first hand,
like the impact of what goes wrong in these situations.
So I think you're right, and I'd really like us
to explore kind of more creative ways
of having that conversation.
Thank you.
I'm gonna bring us to a close,
because I think we've got to move on to our next meeting.
But I just want to say thank you.
I know this is an extra meeting for a lot of you.
I would really appreciate coming together
between the two committees,
and having a really open and kind of robust conversation
and taking a real interest in this issue.
So thank you very much.
And formally the recommendations get considered
through the specific OSC, so the Children's OSC
and the Health OSC.
But yeah, I just wanted to thank everyone
who's taken part in the review,
especially the young people that we spoke to,
the teachers, the youth workers,
and yeah, for everyone for participating
in all the hard work of the offices as well in particular.
So thank you.
And we're moving to 123 if you're joining the Children's OSC.