Addressing violence against children through family play

The project ‘Santander, a Protective Scenario through Family play!’ intends to address the issue of domestic violence including violence against children across the 87 municipalities in the Department of Santander. Play, and more importantly, positive time with family, was found to be a key component in fostering children’s sense of safety and protection within the home. The comprehensive strategy, centering around awareness raising around play and positive parenting, consisted of online play activations, training local leaders to foster play and positive parenting in their territories, distribution of educational materials and games across schools and municipal offices, supporting child participation through, for example, ‘Kids takeovers’ of leadership roles in the department, and parenting trainings, among others. Almost 200,000 families have been reached through face-to-face activities, and 40,000 families have been reached online. A survey on the impact of the programme demonstrated that parents reported agreeing with the need to spend more time with their children.