A new alliance wants to improve the way Canberra children are taught about relationships and sexuality to prevent sexual violence through education.
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In a year when women such as Grace Tame, Brittany Higgins and Chanel Contos have brought to light the pervasive issue of sexual violence, the Relationships and Sexuality Education Alliance hopes to bring together different voices to ensure all children and young people have the information they need.
The alliance's president Katrina Marson said her work in the sexual offences unit of the ACT Director of Public Prosecutions has spurred her to advocate for better education.
"It's only served to deepen my resolve that we need to do more to prevent sexual violence before it occurs because obviously the criminal justice system can only respond once the harm has occurred, whereas what we need to be better at is making sure we don't get to that point," she said.
"We're really excited and proud to be launching in a year that has just gone to prove I suppose the importance of our message and our work in what we hope to achieve in our advocacy."
Ms Marson took up a Churchill fellowship to travel to Europe and North America to study the way other countries implement relationships and sexuality education.
She found other jursidictions treated this education as a community-wide commitment rather than just a matter for the education sector.
"It was really clear that these countries these jurisdictions prioritised, I would say a partnership between the school and the home and the wider community. It wasn't seen as exclusively the domain of of any particular sector."
The alliance has been slowly forming since she return to Australia in 2019 and will finally launch on Tuesday.
The founding members include Tim Bavinton and Dr Sheridan Kerr from Sexual Health and Family Planning ACT, YWCA's Leah Dwyer, the ANU's Dr Kelly Frame, psychologist Kirsten Doyle and James McDougall of the Institute of Child Protection Studies.
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ACT Council of Parents & Citizens Associations policy officer Veronica Elliott also sits on the group as a parent representative.
"Consent, relationships and sex education are difficult topics for parents. But now what we're seeing is that young people are actually publicly calling out for better relationships and sexuality education," Ms Elliott said.
"I think it's often a really challenging topic for parents, they might not know what to say or how to have these conversations with the young people.
"And one of the focuses of the alliance is to really make sure parents have access to and can participate in evidence-based relationship and sexuality education, which hopefully will make these conversations easier and set young people up for life."
Ms Marson is expecting opposition and concern from some pockets of society, but her research found that engaging respectfully with opponents and presenting them with the evidence was the best way forward.
"The evidence is really clear that the more you talk to young people, and the earlier you talk to them in an age appropriate way, about this subject matter, the later they are likely to have their first sexual experience, and the less likely they are to have negative sexual experiences."
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