It’s Not Love explores the themes of healthy and unhealthy relationships, including behaviours relating to interpersonal relationship abuse (peer on peer and familial).
Resources include three films and accompanying lesson plans that follow four characters experiencing interpersonal domestic violence, in familial, friendship and in intimate partner relationships. Also provided are the clear curriculum links for this resource.
The resources enable young people aged 11-14, to explore the impact of the decisions that the characters make and investigate potential allies and intervention moments, while also exploring the questions surrounding what a healthy and unhealthy relationship is. The resources seek to prevent harmful sexual behaviours and coercive control that may lead to adult domestic violence and abuse in intimate partner relationships.
There are three short films, for each of the characters. The films should be watched in order as they have interconnecting stories, though they work independently of each other.
Delivering It's Not Love
Each film and supporting activities can be delivered in 50 minutes to an hour. We recommend a minimum of four sessions to cover the whole resource.
Familiarise yourself with the film content before showing young people and be aware that the contents may act as a trigger for anyone who has been affected by issues raised in the films.
Before watching each film, ask young people to look out for any risks and concerns for that character.
The films work best when watched on a large screen in dark surroundings.
Reiterate the message that the victim is never responsible or to blame for the abuse that they experience.
Ensure that everyone knows where they can seek support if they need to talk to someone about any issues raised in the films, or anything else.
We suggest that after an initial discussion with the whole group about the issues and concerns they have noted, split into smaller groups to engage in the learning activities.
Lucy is aged 14 and lives in East Marsh, Grimsby with her recently separated parents. She’s just been moved to the bottom set at school and is missing her friends.
Background: Lucy's story
Lucy’s mum was born and bred in Grimsby and has recently got a job in Asda, Lucy’s Dad is Polish and came to Grimsby in 2005. He felt that the UK offered job prospects and one of his friends had moved to Grimsby, and life had turned good for him. Lucy’s Dad initially worked on the docks and more recently worked in one of the fish-packing factories, before losing his job.
Lucy’s parents both lost their jobs due to staff cuts following Brexit. They have recently separated after increasing emotional difficulties. Her dad became depressed, distant, and felt worthless and increasingly felt that following Brexit, the UK was not the place for him and wished to return to Poland. He wanted Lucy, her brother and mum to go with him, but Lucy’s mum didn’t want to, as all her extended family live in Grimsby and she didn’t want the family to be apart.
Since her dad left, and returned ‘home’ to Poland, Lucy has become increasingly withdrawn and feels that her world is falling apart as she misses her dad and misses being a family all together. Lucy likes school, but has recently been diagnosed with dyslexia, and has been placed in the bottom-set, away from her friends. Lucy has begun to experience anxiety as she feels that she doesn’t fit in with her new classmates and has started to miss school. Lucy’s mum lets her stay off school, as she is worried that she is becoming depressed as well and she doesn’t want to lose her emotionally, like she has lost her husband. Lucy’s mum doesn’t feel that staying on at school after Lucy’s GCSE’s is the right thing for her and feels that earning a wage rather than aspiring to go to college would be best for her.
Recently Lucy has been noticing a group of older girls, hanging out in Grant Thorold Park, playing music, having a laugh, and calling out to boys. Lucy is increasingly becoming fascinated by them. Lucy has never seen girls act so confidently before – though she’d hate it if anyone ever catcalled her like that, still Lucy is drawn to them. One of the girls – Jo, Lucy recognises from the Polish community club - she hasn’t seen her for years, she’s a few years older than Lucy, she’d play on the machines or hang outside the club with all the popular boys. To Lucy’s surprise, Jo recognised her and despite their age gap - strikes-up a close friendship. Lucy begins to hang out with Jo and the other girls in the park, sometimes going back to Jo’s flat on the outskirts of town and staying the night. Lucy feels that she is a lesbian but has not disclosed that to any of her family or friends.
Liam is aged 15 and lives with his mum and younger brother in a 2-bed 1st floor flat above a shop on Eleanor Street (which is at the back of Freeman Street – the main high street in Grimsby) The flat is noisy at night. He’s still at school and studying for his GCSE’s, all he thinks about is football and playing football.
Background: Liam's story
Liam’s dad died a few years back. Liam misses him and misses his dad coming to watch him play football. He hangs out with his mates from the football team down at the local community café.
He has angry outbursts at home and at school – he is frustrated as he feels that he’s never going to be able to leave Grimsby and be a professional footballer. He has a coach at the football club (Chris) who can see his talent and believes he can make it in football – but that the only thing that is stopping that, is Liam’s anger issues and the fact that he keeps getting into fights at school. Chris is trying to talk to Liam about this and help him find ways of calming his anger and manage his emotions and get him into the next level of the football club – Chris is hopeful for Liam’s future.
Liam likes a girl at school called Yasmin – she is not impressed with the fact that he keeps fighting and blanks him when he does that. But she does quite like him, apart from that, as she watches the local football matches as her brother plays in Liam’s team too and she can see Liam’s skills and talents on the football pitch.
Liam doesn’t know how to talk to Yasmin and gets frustrated that he can’t find the confidence to talk with her; he knows that fighting with other lads doesn’t impress Yasmin, but he finds it hard to turn his behaviour around.
Liam takes a lot of his anger and frustration out on his mum and younger brother, and this can turn physically aggressive as well as verbally aggressive at times. His mum works 3 jobs across the week – she feels over worked and underpaid and feels that this situation will never change for her and her family. It’s been hard since her husband died and hard financially too. One of her jobs is 3 nights a week, so Liam is in charge of looking after his younger brother Ryan when she’s at work.
Gem is aged 15 and lives near Grant Thorold Park in East Marsh. She is at school studying for her GCSE’s, she’s bright and wants to do well at school. Gem has been dating Kian who is aged 17 and lives Duke of York Gardens in West Marsh. Kian left school at 16.
Background: Gem's story
There has been domestic violence (DV) in her home environment in the past between her mum and dad. Her mum has had a few partners since her and Gem’s dad split up, but is now in a happy and steady relationship with Dan.
Her dad and his family are well known in this area, she has seen her dad on and off over the years since he left, and he turns up in the area unannounced when he does come to see her.
She’s close to her mum and mum’s new partner Dan who Gem really likes, he’s kind and wouldn’t hurt her or her mum and Gem really wants this relationship to work with her mum as her mum’s much happier and so is she. But there is still a residue of feeling from the intergenerational tolerance of being treated badly by men, but she feels more hope now for the future.
Gem often wanders the streets, hanging out with friends, going to house parties – she started doing this when DV was going on at home, so it’s something that she got used to doing, she would leave the house to get away from witnessing the DV, but she didn’t tell people what was going on, so she held it as a secret for a long time. The residue of witnessing the DV still stays with Gem and her thoughts. She tries to act older than her age and is known to local services (because of the history of DV in the family)
She works on a Friday and Saturday night in the local chip shop. Everyone knows her and she’s very friendly with customers and likes working in the chip shop as it gives her money and free fish and chips. She’s a hard worker. It also means that she can see lots of people on those nights when they come into the shop, so she hears the local gossip. The fish and chip shop is on the sea front, so it’s often busy around there too.
Gem has not long started dating Kian; he’s older and has a car. He works for a garage and is training to be a mechanic. Kian first met Gem when he came into the fish and chip shop one time and asked her out to go to a house party in East Marsh. Gem thinks about Kian a lot and likes the attention he gives her – she feels needed and wanted by him.
Background: Kian's story
Kian’s manager is called Greg, who he looks up to and is keen to progress at work and get a promotion in the future as he is motivated by money and position. Greg can see his potential to do well at work but worries about his attitude outside of work.
He has recently passed his driving test and uses his dad’s car when he can. He lives with his dad, as mum left a while ago – he is still very angry that she left home. But understands that mum couldn’t carry on living there as mum and dad’s relationship had broken down – but feels abandoned by her.
His Dad works long hours and is on a zero-hours contract and feels the pressure of that. He gets on with his dad, but when his dad’s stressed at work and tired, they can argue.
He likes going to house parties in East Marsh. He is known by a lot of people and has quite a reputation. He has started dating Gem; they met at the local chippy and then she went to a house party with him a few months ago. He is quite controlling of Gem – as to what she wears, who she speaks to, where she goes, he thinks she should pay more attention to him. He monitors what Gem puts out on social media and gets his male friends to keep an eye on her and report back to him if she’s seen talking to any other lads. He likes Gem a lot and gets frustrated that she works at the fish and chip shop, as he would like to spend more time with her on a weekend when he’s not working.
At the last house party – Kian and Gem got into an argument as he felt that she was looking at another lad, it ended in a heated argument, and he slapped her and aggressively pushed her out of the house where the party was. Kian feels that Gem doesn’t understand how her behaviour makes him feel.
Greg his manager at work has recently heard about him getting controlling and aggressive with Gem, as he is friends with the family that run the local fish and chip shop where Gem works. He’s told Kian that that’s not the way to treat someone and that he needs to sort his behaviour out. Kian looks up to Gregg and is embarrassed that he knows what’s been going on but finds it hard to control his feelings about Gem.
Training, lesson plans, a whole-school approach framework and a dedicated helpline to support secondary school teachers and leaders embed sex and relationships education across their whole school.
