Kidscape has won a Hate Crime Award!

We’re delighted to have won the Victim Support Hate Crime Charter Award for our work tackling hate crime.

As a charity, it’s incredibly important to us that every child and their family gets support tackling hate crime. We follow the hate crime charter, which outlines seven rights that people have when it comes to hate crime.

For example, we believe passionately in the right to be heard, no matter who you are. That means that we actively try to engage with diverse communities. We’re members of the Muslim Mind Collaborative to improve our understanding and support to Muslim children and families. We’ve also partnered with Reachout ASC to improve our support for autistic children and their families. This means that we’ve designed social stories and communication tools to help autistic children to understand and communicate experiences of bullying:

"A pupil in Year 8 was getting into a lot of trouble for shouting out and threatening another boy in the class. The other children were laughing at him, and he ended up with detention. I was asked to talk to him, and knowing that he found it difficult to talk when he is upset, I used the visuals (created by Kidscape and Reachout ASC). He described how this other boy had been following him, whispering into his ear that he was [a SEND related insult] and that he would stab him when no-one was looking. The autistic pupil was so frightened when he saw the boy in his class that he lost it and shouted all kinds of things at him. The subject teacher had insisted that the autistic child had started it. Indeed, that’s all he had seen. Thankfully, we were able to find out the truth and the visuals certainly helped. We are dealing with the other boy and his threats now and trying to make school safe again for the autistic pupil." - Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator

Just as important is the right to information. It wouldn’t be fair if only some people could access information about hate crime. It’s got to be available to everybody. At Kidscape, we’ve translated our anti-bullying advice into multiple languages. This has meant that refugee children have been able to benefit from our help:

“The refugee children and young people often get bullied in school and college and lack confidence and enough English to report it or communicate their feelings. These translated resources are incredibly useful – they learn what bullying is and how to deal with it - especially how and where to go when they need help and support.” - Refugee Council

Carole Philips, our Regional Manager for Wales, is delighted that Kidscape’s work has been recognised.

“Receiving the Hate Crime Charter Trustmark has been a huge achievement for Kidscape because it shows what we strive for as a charity. We know that hate crime and bullying can be devastating, and we want to ensure that can respond in the best way to help children and their families. This means supporting them, offering advice, showing them respect and kindness, and, above all, helping them to know that they are not alone.”

For us, winning the Victim Support Hate Crime Charter Award is an honour. No-one should have to experience hate crime. We’ll keep working until all bullied children and their families get the support they need.