What Businesses can do to Protect Children
Nancy works for your company. She has to leave home at 06.00, take two taxis and walk for 10 minutes so as to clock in at work at 07.45. Her three children must walk to school and home on their own. The eldest is 11 and has just started secondary school. On his way to school he drops off his two young brothers at primary school. The walk takes 20 minutes.
Nancy’s boyfriend has been mistreating her. She ‘calls a sicky’ almost every month. Her supervisor suspects she is suffering domestic abuse, but Nancy is not talking about it, despite showing all the signs. She is a good worker, but he knows that he will have to talk with her soon. She knows that she might lose her job. So both of them are treading the high wire, knowing that a fall is bound to happen.
In a small company there might be only one Nancy. In a big corporation the number of Nancy’s is unknown.
The difference in your company is that Nancy’s supervisor is a certified Prevention Facilitator. He has read the signs, calls Nancy into the office of a morning and invites her to talk with him. She opens up to him.
He offers Nancy a place on the next Resistance and Self-Defence training, which the company offers to all the staff. He tells her it will help her to be more resilient, and help her to stand up for herself. It will also help her to be confident in front of the customers, for he has noticed how angry she has been with challenging customers. He says that after training she will be able to diffuse confrontations, and that she will learn self-defence techniques so as to gain time to run and report. She will be told what to do and where to go to report violence at home.
Above all, he says, by offering Resistance and Self-Defence training to staff, the company is supporting the I Protect Me free training in the schools where her children go, teaching them how to stand up for themselves and to learn self-defence moves (without using weapons) to keep themselves safe.
I Protect Me would like to come along to your company to give a free demo.
Having a trained Prevention Facilitator as an in-house resource is also a return on your Corporate Social Investment.
