Safer Pathways: empowering children’s voices through art to promote respect and safety
735 individual artworks, plus collaborative pieces with three local schools, filled our Safer Pathways art showcase. Together, they capture children’s perspectives on what respect, safety and friendship look like in their lives.
The Safer Pathways project promotes healthy, respectful relationships, and challenges the drivers of gendered violence and rigid stereotyping. Working alongside schools and families, our shared objective is for all people to live free from family and domestic violence and other forms of discrimination, including racism and bullying.
Safer Pathways takes a whole-of-community approach, partnering with local primary schools and the wider communities to co-design activities with teachers, caregivers and children. We invite subject-matter experts to community sessions and connect families with local support providers, and work with local Elders and cultural leaders to encourage participation and leadership.
Building confidence at home and at school
We deliver knowledge and skills workshops for parents and caregivers – after which 100% of surveyed parents report knowing more about family, domestic and sexual violence, and feeling more confident talking about respectful relationships with others, including their children. All parents also reported feeling more confident in their knowledge of available support services.
“This is my favourite part of the week,” said one of the mothers. “As I work on myself, the relationship with my boys is gettering better.”
To support classrooms, we facilitate workshops in schools, building staff understanding of the drivers of violence and how to embed prevention in everyday practice.
Children’s voices at the centre
The Safer Pathways art contest invited children across the area to share their ideas in a simple, positive way. Many pieces focused on fairness, standing up for friends, asking for help, and the importance of trusted adults. And by making art, the children got to practice the language of respect and safety they use at school and at home.
What’s next
With schools and families, we’ll keep building shared skills and a common language about respect, challenging stereotypes and supporting children when something doesn’t feel right. The children have shown us through their 735 artworks how they want their world to be.
Our job is to back them, keep listening and keep working together.
Listen now
