Prevention of Sexual Harassment in Secondary Schools Erasmus Project

Project Title

Prevention of Sexual Harassment in Secondary Schools

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for school education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Health and wellbeing; Civic engagement / responsible citizenship

Project Summary

Sexual harassment and abuse, especially in social media, is a new challenge to youth, schools and parents. Teachers and other professionals working in schools, as well as youth and their parents need more information on how to recognise sexual harassment in school environment and how to work for its prevention.

The objectives of Sexual Harassment Prevention in Secondary Schools (SHEHAP) project are:
1. To improve the accuracy and to-the-point content of materials about sexual harassment prevention in schools by providing study-based information and analysis about the information needs of secondary school pupils, teachers and parents.
2. To improve the topicality and attractiveness of the educational materials about sexual harassment prevention by involving secondary school pupils in the development of up-to-date teaching and learning materials.
3. To decrease all forms of sexual harassment in schools by enhancing the ability of pupils, teachers and school staff to detect, prevent and intervene in sexual harassment.
4. To improve the skills and knowledge in sexual harassment prevention of teachers and different professional groups working in schools by equipping them with meaningful tools and useful guidelines.
5. To raise the awareness of parents about sexual harassment prevention and to provide them with instructions and tips about how to discuss sexual harassment with their children.

The basic methodology of the project is to enhance young people’s knowledge, skills and ways to recognize and identify sexual harassment and to create learning materials and tools for prevention of sexual harassment. The project invites young people to participate in designing these materials, giving the necessary background information for the experts working with them and planning the guidelines on how to use them at schools. Parents are also closely involved in the implementation of the project: they are invited to workshops where they can participate in the development of learning materials, give feedback and ask questions.

The key result of SHEHAP is an increased ability of teachers, school professionals, parents and youngsters between 13–16 years to recognise and prevent sexual harassment. The outputs of the project strongly reflect the young people’s commitment to planning, implementation and evaluation at every stage of the project. The materials produced during the project are:
1. Research report about the different requirements that pupils, teachers, other school professionals and parents need in order to be able to recognise sexual harassment in schools.
2. Digital learning materials for pupils about sexual harassment prevention produced in innovative ways in collaboration with the target group.
3. Educational material for teachers and other school professionals about how to recognise and prevent sexual harassment.
4. Training package for parents on how to recognise and prevent sexual harassment using differents discussion methods with children
5. Guidelines for sexual harassment recognition and prevention for secondary schools.

The project implements the standard for Sexuality Education in Europe by WHO’s Regional Office for Europe. The guidelines and materials bring one consensus of how to prevent sexual harassment despite of cultural differences. Therefore it is adaptable at least European wide. The materials will also be available in English, which increases the possibility of exploitation over the consortium borders.

The project consortium is convinced that taking into consideration the critical importance of sexual harassment prevention at schools that with efficient dissemination the results can attract large interest. The ideal impact would be the large coverage of schools and school staff that have been introduced to the produced guidelines and materials and have taken these materials as part of their working ecosystem.

The partners of the SHEHAP project come from four countries from different parts of Europe. Finland as a coordinating country is accompanied by Greece, Lithuania and Portugal. Inviting different sexual education cultures to contribute to the project activities ensures that the approaches taken to the prevention of sexual harassment are more versatile and diverse in the final outputs of the project.

There are four piloting secondary schools; Vasaramäen koulu from Finland, 9th high school kallitheas “Manos Xatzidakis” from Greece, Klaipedos Versmes progimnazija from Lithuania and Agrupamento de Escolas de Santo Antonio from Portugal. These four schools have a significant role in the implementation of the SHEHAP project in general. The four academic partners of the project work closely together with the local school partners. The academic partners of the consortium are: Turku University of Applied Sciences (Finland), University of West Attica (Greece), Klaipeda City Public Health Bureau (Lithuania) and Escola Superior de Enfermagem de Lisboa (Portugal).

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 310146 Eur

Project Coordinator

TURUN AMMATTIKORKEAKOULU OY & Country: FI

Project Partners

• Vasaramäen koulu
• Agrupamento de Escolas de Santo António
• PANEPISTIMIO DYTIKIS ATTIKIS
• BI Klaipedos miesto visuomenes sveikatos biuras
• 9th high school kallitheas “Manos Xatzidakis”
• Klaipedos Versmes progimnazija
• ESCOLA SUPERIOR DE ENFERMAGEM DE LISBOA (ESEL)