Plymouth teenager honoured with Diana Award for helping to protect city’s children

A Plymouth teenager has been honoured with a Diana Award for her contribution to the city’s Together for Childhood programme, which aims to prevent child sexual abuse.

Tegan Tunnicliffe, 18, has been commended for her ongoing work helping to protect children and young people from harm at a virtual ‘red carpet’ event this afternoon, the first in the ceremony’s history.

Recalling the moment she found out about the award, Tegan says: “The first thing I did was ring my mum who was at work. We both found it hilarious until it actually sank in and I realised which Diana we were on about. I was extremely honoured to be nominated, let alone actually receive a Diana Award.” 

Liam Payne, James McVey and Dame Emma Thompson were among the special guests and performers at the star-studded online event, which Tegan attended from home.

The Hele’s School student, who will be attending Plymouth University from September, has been involved since the very early stages of Together for Childhood, contributing to the neighbourhood selection process in which the pilot site area of Ernesettle was decided.

“Together for Childhood is extremely important in encouraging involvement within communities, which in turn encourages a range of voices and opinions,” says Tegan.

“I believe this is extremely important in encouraging the voice of young people to create a generation of people who are comfortable to speak out and get involved within communities.”

Publicly launched in October 2018, the community-based partnership programme is reinforcing simple safeguarding messages in communities to build confidence in adults to protect children from abuse.

The NSPCC has teamed up with local residents, voluntary groups and schools, as well as Plymouth City Council, Plymouth Safeguarding Children Board, and Devon & Cornwall Police to deliver the initiative.

Tegan is an active member of the programme’s youth participation group, EMPOWER, which has been exploring what healthy relationships mean to young people and evaluating Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) provision in schools.

NSPCC Children’s Service Practitioner, Corinne Picton says: “Tegan co-created and co-delivered sessions to teaching staff aimed at increasing their confidence in delivering RSE lessons. She was also involved in developing a quality assurance tool which could be used by schools to assess RSE teaching resources and lesson plans.

“This was based on the key messages young people wanted to give to schools about what made for good provision. This has been invaluable in preparing schools for when RSE becomes compulsory in September 2020.”

The group’s definition of what healthy relationships mean to young people has been adopted by the Plymouth Safeguarding Children Partnership, and an education resource pack created by EMPOWER is now widely being used by professionals across the city to help with the delivery of RSE lessons.

The pack includes a powerful animation narrated by Tegan, which members of EMPOWER scripted and created with the support of the NSPCC and Barnardo’s in Plymouth.

Tegan adds: “I hope that in having this project, more young people are given the opportunity and encouraged to get involved within the community as I’ve had the chance too. I think it is important for young people to be heard which I hope this project will encourage for more people as it has done for me.”

In addition to her work around healthy relationships, Tegan also facilitated a session for the National Citizenship Service (NCS), presenting to more than 500 peers on the topic of exploitation. She co-created the session following a training session she attended with Devon and Cornwall Police about County Lines exploitation. She went onto work with the force on a campaign to raise awareness of child exploitation, which is currently in use across the city.

Corinne adds: “Tegan’s ongoing involvement in Together for Childhood is a credit to a young person who is passionate about young people's rights, and believes steadfastly in opportunities for young people to express their thoughts and opinions, and for the adults and professionals around them to listen, take seriously and act. I am delighted that she has been recognised with a Diana Award.”

Established in memory of Diana, Princess of Wales, The Diana Award is awarded retrospectively to young people aged 9-25 years old for their social action or humanitarian work.

“I would like to say a massive thank you to all of the adults who have given me a voice as a young person and given me the opportunity to speak and work around topics I am passionate about,” says Tegan.

“I hope eventually I will be able to inspire other young people to get more involved within their communities and help them to realise that they can have a voice.”

The award ceremony is free to watch on The Diana Award YouTube Channel.