Peer-on-peer abuse toolkit made by Farrer & Co (2017)

Peer-on-peer abuse is one of the most significant risks facing our children today. Despite this, it has, until more recently, received relatively little attention from academics, policy makers and practitioners alike. In addition, it can remain under-recognised by professionals working with children, and under-reported by children themselves. As a result, neither the nature nor the true scale of peer-on-peer abuse is fully understood, and schools can continue to struggle to address this issue in a comprehensive way, if at all, with obvious safeguarding implications for children.

The peer-on-peer abuse toolkit is the Safeguarding Unit's and Dr Firmin's combined response to this. It provides practical guidance for schools on how to prevent, identify early and respond appropriately to peer-on-peer abuse. It encourages schools to adopt a clear and comprehensive approach to such abuse - tailored to the school's specific safeguarding circumstances, to look behind children's behaviour, and to identify and challenge any underlying attitudes, social conditions and contextual dynamics that may have led to peer-on-peer abuse.