The focus of this chapter is on drawing upon the research findings to inform the development of prevention and early intervention education with young people in schools and beyond. The chapter outlines an overview of current sex and relationship or healthy relationship education, primarily delivered in educational settings. The discussion also offers a practical approach to preventing and addressing this issue across communities on a whole-system basis. Essentially, it is argued that any preventative programme delivered should be accompanied by appropriate referral, assessment, safety planning systems and robust evaluation.

The focus of prevention education for young people should be on recognising the impact of everyday forms of GBV as a continuum of naturalised harassment and abuse of women by men, rather than as a ‘sledgehammer’, or abuse perpetrated by a minority of dominant men (Stanko, 1985). Young people should be educated on understanding the impact of everyday harassment and abuse experienced by known perpetrators from their own intimate relationships, and therefore a focus should be on understanding young people's lived experiences of relationship abuse. Young women should be educated on the norms associated with women's gendered roles, specifically, young men's power and entitlement to young women's bodies, their feelings and thoughts. The foundation of prevention education with young people should focus on normative gendered power dynamics and its impact on their experiences of the everyday routines of their intimate relationships, including the established scripts of the progression of their relationships, how they experience intimacy, coercion and abuse and how these experiences differ as a result of their individual needs, well-being and personal profiles, therefore identifying the connections in the ways that young women experience abuse within their intimate relationships, while also identifying the impact of their individualised needs on their own subjective experiences.

Building on the state of current sex and relationship education in the UK, the focus of this chapter is on exploring the idea of gendered social norms as the foundation of prevention and early intervention education across communities.