13 Sep 2018
by Orielle, NKBL in schools, NKBL toolkits, NKBL and youth work

This week we are launching our new resource, Playing It Safe, at the Scottish Learning Festival for practitioners and professionals working with children aged 6+. Playing It Safe joins the suite of No Knives, Better Lives resources to address the issues of knife carrying, conflict and violence.

About the resource

NKBL takes a youth work approach to knife crime prevention, supporting young people to make positive life choices. We’ve designed this resource to be used with a younger age group because prevention can never start too early. There have been increasing requests from NKBL partners for materials to support work with primary school aged children.

Playing It Safe supports children to explore themes of responsibility, emotions, friendship, risk, consequence, and influence. We’ve designed the resource to link directly with Curriculum for Excellence experiences and outcomes, including:

I am aware of and able to express my feelings and am developing the ability to talk about them. HWB 1-01a/HWB 2-01a
I am learning skills and strategies which will support me in challenging times, particularly in relation to change and loss. HWB 1-07a/HWB 2-07a

Using the resource

Playing It Safe makes it easy to incorporate prevention activities into whatever setting you work in, whether primary schools, youth clubs or youth groups. There is a variety of activities, including games, role play and group work. The activities can be run independently of each other or used together to create a sustained focus on knife carrying prevention.

Talking about knife carrying with any young person can be a daunting prospect. That’s why we’ve included our top tips on using this resource with children. You’ll also notice we haven’t explicitly mentioned knife crime in activities in the resource labelled CfE Level First. This is part of our 4 Rs approach to prevention: reassurance, risks and consequences, resilience and responsibility.

Where to get your copy

We are launching Playing It Safe this week at the Scottish Learning Festival 2017. We are in stand H125 where you can pick up your free copy. It is also available to download from our website alongside our other resources.

We want to say a huge THANK YOU to our friends at the Ben Kinsella Trust for their support and guidance in putting together this resource.