As part of this session we discussed healthy and unhealthy friendships, how friendships can change and how easy it is to became part of a group where power is not equal. We talked about how it is often difficult to pull away from a friendship or situation and say no. We discussed about how to identify if something is not right and how often we just get a feeling and that we should trust our gut instincts. We found out that it is against the law to carry a weapon of any kind (knives, pepper spray etc.) even if your intention is not to use it. Being with a group that is committing a crime makes us accountable – it is called ‘joint enterprise’ and comes with will result in you having a criminal record. The man also told us that if we have a knife we are much more likely to become hurt than if we did not as the person attacking us can use it against us or react in a more threatening manner because they assume we were planning to attack them. He told us how important it is to know who our trusted adult is and to always tell them if we feel or are involved in anything that we don’t think is right.
