Body Safety Australia educator Lauren French talks consent education with ABC News

As an organisation specialising in body safety and consent education, we are welcoming of the Victorian government’s recent announcement of mandatory consent education in schools. However, we also know that consent education isn’t black and white, and there needs to be more than just ‘box ticking’ when it comes to sex and consent education.

Lauren French https://lauren-french.com/Our brilliant senior educator Lauren French spoke to ABC about the crucial nuances in consent education delivery and the importance of experience as well as funding, when it comes to supporting culturally and linguistically diverse families in consent education in Australia.

"We're ticking boxes in consent education, rather than doing actual amazing consent education,"
- Lauren French

We have had schools tell us outright that the content is too sensitive for parents or children, or that the programs should be altered to avoid certain topics and remain ‘traditional’. But rather than protect parents and communities, these beliefs undermine them, and unfortunately continues to disempower them.

"The way curriculums are written and the way that people can teach things is that they can kind of get around the tricky topics, the hard bits, which is actually detrimental to the child, because it means that they're not getting access to consistent consent education."
- Lauren French

What we often find, upon discussion with parents after engaging with our services, is that they feel grateful and relieved that this education has been provided, and in many cases bring with them a whole new range of questions and conversations themselves. The relief and empowerment are often palpable, and there seems to be a stronger sense of community and mutual support between the school, staff and parents after the program.

This includes marginalised and culturally and linguistically diverse communities, and though we have a commitment to diversity and inclusion throughout our work, we know there is more to be done in this area. As Lauren points out, this requires funding and an understanding of the importance of, as well as a genuine commitment to, adequate consent education.

"A lot of the time, there's the assumption that we're in Australia, we're just going to give everything in English, and that's going to be fine, but if it's really important information, like consent education, abuse prevention, sexuality education, any of these, we want to be meeting those parents and making it as accessible for them as possible."
- Lauren French

Perhaps what we are seeing in the media at present is the government and wider Australian society gaining this understanding, and moves such as mandatory consent education are a great step in the right direction. However, they are but one step, and we must make sure we aren’t just ticking boxes and we’re providing this education adequately for all Australians.

Read the full article at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-18/migrant-parents-call-support-sex-education-consent-petition/100013554