Project Description
| FINALIST: | Kidscape | |
| Entry Title: | ZAP Assertiveness Training | |
| Talk Title: | Surviving Bullying: from Passive to Assertive in a Day | |
| Category: | Developing Potential (Corporate Responsibility) | |
| Sector: | Voluntary Sector | |
| OVERVIEW | ||
| With ZAP, Kidscape has developed and run a project which has been proven to be incredibly successful for over 15 years.The short intervention period (one day) delivers long-term benefits to participants, enabling us to work with a high number of beneficiaries, and robust evaluations allow us to be confident that our support makes a real difference.
Over the years we have adapted ZAP to address changing attitudes, policies and a range of online dangers, yet we continue to have extremely consistent results. ZAP works, and improves the lives, and life chances, of hundreds of children every year |
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| IMPACT | ||
| ZAP rebuilds the confidence of severely bullied young people.
The bullying they experience can result in serious physical and mental health problems, disengagement from learning and withdrawal from social activities. ZAP teaches children assertiveness strategies and skills to help them deflect any further attacks from bullies. In the last 15 years Kidscape has helped over 3000 young people through ZAP, 90% of whom have not been bullied again since attending a session. ZAP is Kidscape’s flagship project which has worked with children across the UK and helped us to cement our work as the leader in the anti-bullying field. |
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| INNOVATION | ||
| Kidscape developed ZAP at a time when bullying, and its effects, was not a topic which received the widespread attention it does now.
Kidscape was the first organisation to understand how severely children could be affected, and to put together a simple, practical course to help them. We also involve parents in the training with their own information session so that the child is supported after the ZAP day. Although there are now a number of other organisations working in this field, ZAP remains the only intensive, practical, face-to-face project which works directly with those who have experienced bullying. |
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| INSPIRATION | ||
| The content of the ZAP programme is simple, and comprises a “toolbox” of assertiveness techniques and self-esteem exercises which are well-known amongst professionals in the psychological and education sectors.
The simplicity of the programme means it is easily adapted for different groups of beneficiaries (for example, those with additional educational needs), and can also be delivered as a preventative session to larger groups (for example a whole class within a school). ZAP is, in essence, life skills training which could be adapted to work with numerous beneficiaries, and not exclusively those who have been bullied |
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