HELLO everyone! Hope you’ve all had a good fortnight. I’ve been busy as usual with loads of things going on and being planned. I’ve got many exciting things approaching and I can’t wait!

This week I’m really looking forward to the school Halloween disco — I love dressing up. Need to hope I can top my costume from last year, there is a prize at stake!

Last week I went on training through school which was for the MVP programme – Mentors in Violence Protection – and really thought it was so insightful and worthwhile. With bullying becoming more common than ever and things such as sexual abuse and violence almost becoming normalised this training has been introduced to really show how wrong that is.

The model is an approach to gender violence and bullying prevention that was first developed in 1993 at North-eastern University in America. It’s main aims were to reduce gender-based violence, assault, rape and homophobia and is so versatile that the same messages are able to be delivered here in Inverclyde.

Nearly all high schools in the area are participating in MVP, both staff and pupils have been trained to deal with various issues that may be occurring in both school settings and beyond.

The training itself is highly interactive and very insightful and allows for opinions to be formed and points to be discussed.

It’s a place where harsh reality is fully highlighted and how cruel human nature can be is demonstrated in the hope of evoking a helpful response. By being exposed to so many scenarios and being shown the types of situations we may find ourselves in we can discover appropriate ways to handle conflicting difficulties we may face or see other people being subjected to and learn the best way to diffuse the situation while keeping ourselves safe.

With many elements of violence on the rise in Scotland and with bullying becoming more prominent in both school and online it is important that we take measures to try and prevent these situations from becoming much worse.

With so many people trained in MVP I really hope that it alerts them to their own behaviour — as there is nothing worse than not ‘practising what you preach’. Many of the issues covered by the program are things we all really need to step up and try and stop, as simple things can really help the largest of situations. And it’s always best to do something rather than nothing at all. You don’t know what you could be preventing.