“It’s about your son”

The VVU team were excited to host the premiere of a theatre performance about knife crime at the Stanway School, Colchester last week.

Featuring a cast of four, the play “It’s about your son” explores reactions, feelings and family dynamics surrounding the death of a young person to knife crime. The play explores feelings of guilt, responsibility and friendship in both the victim and perpetrators family and friends.

We were joined at the performance by Deputy Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner Jane Gardener and Deputy Chief Constable of Essex Police, Andy Prophet.

The play was written by EastEnders script writer Deborah Cook and includes local actors.

The play is part of a suite of material, including lesson plans and resources that are going into Colchester schools to support teachers to use with their Y7 and Y8 pupils, including in PSHE lessons.

The performance was incredibly powerful, the audience was totally focused on the action happening on stage and the dialogue between the characters. Some of the scenes visibly moved some of the invited audience.

We know knife crime is a difficult and emotive subject to talk about with young people, and an incredibly important topic to speak with our young people about, we thank everyone for their support in ensuring ‘It’s about your son’ is delivered in a sensitive way.

The VVU Knife Harm campaign is currently live (and includes useful resources for helping parents and carers to have conversations with their young people about knife harm) – these are available at www.essexvvu.co.uk/knifeharm  Please do take a look and share on.