Anti-violence assemblies
The remarkable Alison Cope talked to all our students today in a series of one hour assemblies.
Unfortunately, it is increasingly common to read the words "teen" and "stabbing" in the media. Too often these are tragic cases that could have been avoided. Today at Westfield, we had a visit from the remarkable Alison Cope. She is the mother of a young Birmingham boy who was tragically stabbed. She came to talk to our students (she is visiting all the Watford schools) to help them avoid the tragic circumstances her son found himself in.
Alison Cope is the mother of Joshua Ribera who was murdered in 2013.
She now works tirelessly to help prevent youth violence by sharing her son’s unique life and death story to help educate young people on the realties and consequences of youth violence. Her powerful presentations convey: the importance of prevention, the emotive realisation of how choices affect loved ones and how young people retain hope for the future.
What was clear in Alison's talk, was that so often young people end up in situations they could have avoided, but they are driven by social media. If there was one message we should take away from Alison, it was that to protect our young people by ensuring we know what they are doing on social media. More often than not, it is through social media that these type of tragic incidents take place.