Developing Dignity focuses on these three areas:
Positive conversations:
Developing Dignity is all about inspiring period positivity. Developing Dignity aims to inspire positive conversations and education around periods for all. We are passionate about everyone having the opportunity to receive good education, time for discussion and a safe space to answer any questions about periods and puberty.
Tackling Period poverty:
Period poverty is a global issue that affects mainly women and girls, not only across the world but also right here in the UK. By more people being aware of period poverty, more people can help to find solutions and better support others. This includes supporting their peers in the classroom and family members at home.
Education on sustainable period products:
There has been a major shift in the last few years in the range of sustainable and reusable period products now available. Pads and tampons are not the only options! Sustainable period products are great alternatives which are better for the environment by reducing waste; this is something we know younger generations care hugely about and Developing Dignity wants to empower young people to make wise decisions both financially and environmentally.
Period Poverty is a complex global issue. There are 3 main challenges of period poverty.
Not having access to period products:
The first is people not having access to appropriate period resources. “1 in 7 girls have struggled to afford sanitary wear” and “1 in 5 girls have changed to a less suitable sanitary product due to cost”(Plan International, 2018).
Quality education:
The 2nd is both genders not having access to good quality education about why people have periods and how to effectively manage them. This is a big challenge as “1 in 4 girls and young women across the UK said they felt unprepared for the start of their period and 1 in 7 said they didn’t know what was happening” (Plan International 2017).
As adults we may assume that our children are being taught about periods in school. Or as teachers we may assume that periods are being taught at home. We cannot assume that all children will have access to quality conversations around periods and puberty. During a workshop a year 5 girl was asked whether she had talked to her family about periods before this workshop. She responded that she had asked her mum about periods and her mum said “you will learn in school about periods”.
Confidence to overcome barriers:
The 3rd challenge is people lacking confidence to overcome the barriers that periods may pose. In some cultures, periods are seen as a taboo which makes it harder for people to talk about them and receive the support that they need. “11% of girls Plan International surveyed had been told not to talk about periods in front of their fathers”.
Someone may experience one or more of these challenges at any one time; Developing Dignity exists to tackle these challenges and overcome barriers.
Developing Dignity is all about inspiring period positivity. The founder, Beth Henwood has found that in her experience many people have not had the opportunity to have positive conversations about periods. This is not to say that having a period is always a positive experience. But being able to have conversations about periods in a safe space is positive.
Why do we have periods?
How do people deal with the side effects?
What period products are available and how do you use them?
How can we support others on their period?
Understanding that periods are complicated, and everyone’s experience of periods is unique, is an important part of life.
The challenge is when people do not have an opportunity to have these open conversations. Here are a few examples of what can happen as a result.
Girls can start their period without knowing what is happening making it a is a very stressful experience for something that is natural and normal.
Other peers and teachers may not know about periods which will make it harder for them to know how best to support others with their periods.
Girls who struggle to access period products may use inappropriate resources instead and miss out on their education.
Through better understanding people’s experiences of periods, we can all support people better and Developing Dignity aims to give people a safe space to have these conversations.
The Developing Dignity workshops are cross-curricular in our approach. The workshops cover relevant Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) Health Education Curriculum (2020), English and Science curriculum. For more information of the breakdown of our workshops and how they meet the national curriculum criteria, please visit our curriculum page.
The workshops are aimed at school years 4-6, ages 8-11. This is in line with the current Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) (2020) statutory guidance.
All our workshops are bespoke and tailored to your schools’ needs and budget. See more about the different workshops on the What we offer page. Cost will depend on which workshops your school would like as well as how and when your school would like us to deliver the workshops. Schools usually opt for package A, B or C.
Package A- full day: 3 workshops in a day (2 in the morning and 1 in the afternoon)
Package B- Half day: 2 workshops in a morning (cover all the sessions over 2 weeks)
Plan C- One workshop: 1 workshop in a day (cover all the sessions over 4 weeks)
Do email beth.dignity@outlook.com and get in touch if you are interested in booking some workshops or finding out more.
The workshops work well for up to 30 children. The workshops are interactive with lots of breakout discussions and teamwork tasks. The workshops also give children a safe space to ask questions. By limiting the numbers, we enable children to engage well with a sensitive and sometimes challenging topic. During our pilot we received feedback from a teacher that the “children felt comfortable to ask all sorts of questions”, we believe running the workshops for larger groups would undermine this safe space.
We want all children to feel they can fully participate in our workshops. Please get in touch if you have any concerns about how a child/ren might respond to the workshops.
At present, we are running workshops face to face only. However, if you are interested in collaborating with Developing Dignity to run something online then please do get in touch -beth.dignity@outlook.com
When running our pilot, we found that when the workshops were covered in less time the children had lots of questions. We improved this by lengthening the workshops to 2 hours each and found there were less questions as the children had longer to do the activities and digest the information. Therefore, we feel that the workshop sessions must be at least 1 hour 30 minutes. We have found that 2 hours is ideal, but we will be flexible with your schools timetabling. A session under 1 hour 30 minutes hours not only does the subject a disservice but limits the learning and engagement opportunity for the children involved.
A good awareness of periods is something that we at Developing Dignity believe both girls and boys should have. Our preferred method is teaching both girls and boys together. The puberty workshop (first) covers puberty changes in boys and girls. During the pilot we found that some of the boys were more confident in asking questions about the period products than the girls and this helped to aid the learning of all those present. However, we recognise that you know your pupils better and that you may want to the run the sessions separately.
Until recently we were based in Leicester and now we are based in Manchester. We run workshops for most of the North West (have a look at the maps below) and Leicester City and Leicestershire. If you are further afield we can discuss possibilities of how this could work.
A Year 5 Teacher and Health & Well Being champion said "Developing Dignity helped to bring a balanced approach to learning about the menstrual cycle that was as inclusive as the pupils of today deserve."
A year 5 student said “I liked how Beth gave us a heads up on what to do when you start your period and when you get cramps and how you can make a bit of a box of stuff."
For further feedback, please visit our What people think page
Send us an email to beth.dignity@outlook.com We look forward to hearing from you!
We require that teachers are present throughout the workshops. We believe this helps children feel more confident in engaging with the workshops. You will also know what has been covered for any follow up teacher led sessions on puberty and periods.
We are open to having conversations about potential collaboration e.g. workshops for other ages or support applying for period resources, please do get in touch!
Yes, all staff have DBS certificates. We have child protection policies in place. Please email beth.dignity@outlook.com if you would like to see our safeguarding policy.
We ask for consent and will make sure no photos are taken of children who do not have consent. Photos will be used for publicity on out website and social media platforms. We will not share the photos with any third party. Upon request we are willing to share photos with your school of your workshops.
Do get in touch with us and we will try our best to answer your question- beth.dignity@outlook.com