The Mentors in Violence Prevention Program (MVP) is an approach to gender violence and bullying prevention and is designed to give students the skills to speak out against issues which affect relationships within our schools and communities by adopting a positive ‘bystander’ approach. Through peer mentoring, younger students are encouraged to consider and discuss different scenarios such as behaviour online, the use of harmful language, coercive control, gender labelling and alcohol and consent. They are then provided with a range of safe options which can prevent situations from escalating.
Since October 2021, following a successful bid to the Scottish Government’s Equally Safe Fund, we have been working with Renfrewshire Youth Services to take MVP into the community. For more information regarding our Equally Safe in Renfrewshire work, contact Fiona White or Emma Muir (Youth Services Lead) at emma.muir@renfrewshire.gov.uk
MVP is currently running in ten of our secondary schools with over 400 pupil mentors taking part in two days of training where they had the opportunity to consider issues around child protection, gender box, recognising respectful and abusive language and behaviour and developing skills in leadership and facilitation. Mentors are able to gain accreditation for their work through a range of awards from the SQA and the Scottish Government’s Saltire Award. In 2017, Paisley Grammar School’s mentors gained recognition at Renfrewshire Youth Services Awards and, in 2019, were filmed by BBC North for a news article on tackling knife crime. Both Trinity High School and Renfrew High School have taken part in evaluations of the programme by Education Scotland’s MVP Development team.
Click here to access Education Scotland’s annual MVP reports.
The programme relies on building successful partnerships across Education, Health, Youth Services and Police Scotland with over 200 staff trained across all sectors by our own training team. The training team consists includes:
- Jane Ahlfeld – Home Link Worker
- Mark Fulton – PT Pupil Support, St. Andrew’s Academy
- Cameron Malcolm – Acting PT Pupil Support, Renfrew High School
- Andrew Mitchell – Active School, OneRen
- Emma Muir – Youth Services
- Cheryl Thomas – Programmes Development Manager – Active Communities
- Fiona White – Development Officer Health and Wellbeing
If you wish further information regarding the programme, please contact Fiona Hewitt (Coordinator) by email – fiona.hewitt@renfrewshire.gov.uk
You can find clips of our mentors on our Health and Wellbeing YouTube channel.
- BBC North article on Scotland’s approach to violent crime
- 16 Days of Action 2021
- Youth Group of the Year 2017
To hear discussion from around gender-based violence from Jackson Katz who developed the programme in America, click on the clip above. This session was hosted by St Pauls Youth Forum in Glasgow.
Click here to access Education Scotland’s Wakelet on Domestic Abuse.
Click here to access Education Scotland’s MVP Wakelet.
