We spoke with Paula Bowman, Project Lead at our Real Love Rocks service, to discuss the signs of unhealthy and exploitative relationships. She shares how the tools to educate and talk to children and young people about these experiences, is key for prevention and support.
Content warning: Below we are going to talk about abusive relationships, consent, and exploitation, which some readers might find triggering or upsetting.
Who are Real Love Rocks?
Real Love Rocks is one of our services that promotes and advocates for children and young people’s rights to healthy, consensual and safe relationships. Through their 'Healthy Relationships and Exploitation Education Resources', Real Love Rocks provides ground-breaking education and awareness-raising programmes to help professionals teach children and young people about healthy relationships and exploitation.
“Real Love Rocks give educators the opportunity to learn through an amazingly interactive toolkit [that] promotes conversations and education about difficult and challenging topics.”
We are all about relationships.
Paula Bowman
Project Lead, Real Love Rocks
“[Our resources] makes use of animations and we hear throughout from other young people about their experiences.
“[This] helps us have an open dialogue, without judgement, about challenging issues in an age appropriate way. [In creating this open dialogue, we can emphasise to] children and young people that the adults around them are there to help with any issues they may have and want to help keep them safe.”
The importance of investing in education
"Relationships and sex education (RSE) is a crucial part of prevention work to keep children safe from exploitation, grooming and abuse, and helps them to develop the confidence to build healthy relationships.
“Real Love Rocks was developed in response to children and young people’s [experiences] of the RSE they received in school. [They told us] that there was very little about the emotional side of relationships, or how to manage and navigate all types of relationships as they grow up.
“We know through our work that schools and children and young people are [also] struggling with issues of sexual harassment, misogyny (a dislike or prejudice against women and girls), sexual violence and peer on peer abuse.
“[Our work] helps to address these issues, providing a toolkit to work on challenging attitudes around [normalised] sexual harassment, non-consensual sharing of images, cyber flashing and sexual coercion on and offline."
Before Real Love Rocks [...] I didn’t know what grooming was but now I can name it.
Young person
"This work helps children and young people understand their rights to safe healthy relationships, the law in relation to this and where to go for help, and [the importance] of developing a support network who they can talk to if they are worried or confused by anything.
“Education equips young people to have the knowledge, skills, attitudes and ability to identify signs of unhealthy relationships and inappropriate behaviour, [which in turn] helps safeguard them.”
The issues spoken about in Real Love Rock's resources are those that our students are facing in the wider world. We can't stick our heads in the sand as practitioners and keep the same resources we had 10 years ago, we need to update them constantly to match the pace of change that our young people are facing every day. Barnardo’s has always been at the forefront of tackling violence and abuse against children and is well placed to produced trauma-informed guidance that tackles the issues our students face now.
Head of PSHE and Citizenship
Rainhill High School
Resources for professionals
Real Love Rocks has a whole host of programmes and resources available for professionals in schools and other universal settings working with children and young people.
“Our resources have been developed in collaboration with young people, for young people.”
As a trauma informed programme there is a new emphasis on all children and young people learning about emotional regulation and creating a support network of safe and trusted people.
For some of us school is our only safe space; we want you to have conversations with us, even if we know this is difficult, and we want you to notice things about us. Unless we have these conversations, we are ALL [keeping] exploitation a secret.
Young person
If you’d like to learn more about the work Real Love Rocks do, or get in touch about programmes and resources, find out more here.
Advice and support
We all deserve to experience healthy, loving relationships. These relationships are so important in making us feel good, safe, respected and cared for.
"Sometimes the signs of unhealthy or exploitative relationships are easier to see and identify, and other times it can be more subtle or confusing.”
Signs of an unhealthy or exploitative relationship
Signs of unhealthy or exploitative relationships can include experiencing someone:
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Making you feel trapped.
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Making you feel that you can’t say no.
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Making you feel worried, anxious, or that you have to be careful what you say or do.
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Putting you down, name calling or being dismissive.
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Gaslighting, lying, or accusing you of things you haven’t done.
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Being unkind, untrustworthy, jealous, or disrespectful.
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Controlling money and finances.
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Controlling who someone sees and when they leave the house.
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Using intimidation to gain power and control over someone.
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Using technology to control or check up on you, i.e. tracking your location, stalking you, or constantly message you.
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Removing privacy, i.e. going through your phone or messages.
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Being emotionally, physically, or sexually violent and abusive.
No one should have to experience this. That’s why Real Love Rocks educates and advocates for children and young people’s right to have healthy, consensual and safe relationships.
If you are worried about a child or young person, find further advice and support here.
If you are worried about someone you care for, or someone you are working with needs extra support, search here to see what support services are available in your area.
Remember, if a child or young person is in immediate danger, call the police on 999.
You can also find further advice and support if you are worried about a child here.
Support if you're a parent and carer
Caring for a child or young person can be hard. We’re here to help you make sure they can thrive. From running services across the country to providing useful online guidance and support, there are lots of ways we can make your role as a parent or carer a little bit easier.
Child sexual abuse and exploitation
We support thousands of children and young people who have experienced sexual abuse. We also provide support to their families, and to people working with children, such as social workers and teachers, through consultation and training. Learn more about child sexual abuse (CSA) and child sexual exploitation (CSE) from our experts who work in this area.
Get help if you're worried about a child
Find out where to get emergency help for yourself or for someone else, and other organisations you can reach out to for support.