We’ve worked with the National Crime Agency’s CEOP Education on ‘Exploited’, a free-to-download lesson pack exploring features of healthy and unhealthy relationships and supporting students to identify signs of exploitation or abuse in online and offline contexts.

Lesson 1: Healthy and unhealthy relationships
Students consider the features of healthy and unhealthy relationships: learning about how to recognise the early signs of manipulation and abuse (including online) and the role of communication and consent in developing respectful relationships.

Lesson 2: Power and control
Students learn how to recognise and respond to pressure and exploitation in relationships: identifying the signs of exploitation in a variety of relationships; analysing how power and control are used in exploitative relationships, and the emotional impact of this; and evaluating strategies to respond to manipulation, coercion and pressure in relationships.

Lesson 3: Setting boundaries and getting help
Students explore how to establish boundaries in healthy relationships: identifying sources of support (and how to overcome potential barriers to help-seeking), and ensuring they understand the importance of open communication in setting boundaries in healthy, respectful relationships.

The lessons are supported by an (accompanying film to enhance students’ awareness and understanding important concepts, including identifying early signs of abuse and manipulation in relationships and setting boundaries.

A comprehensive Relationship and Sex Education (RSE) curriculum is the best vehicle to teach about these issues safely and effectively in schools. This approach is consistently requested by young people themselves, including survivors of abuse, as highlighted in an NSPCC study. 

If young people feel unable to speak to a trusted adult, they can report concerns about child sexual exploitation to NCA’s CEOP Safety Centre by visiting www.ceop.police.uk.