Educational Action Challenging Homophobia

Educational Action Challenging Homophobia (EACH) is the award-winning charitable organisation in the United Kingdom established "to challenge homophobia through education". Founded in 2002, EACH offers support services to young people and adults affected by homophobic bullying or harassment and training to services including the police, education providers and organisations committed to creating a safer and more equal working and learning environment for lesbian, gay, bisexual and heterosexual people.

EACH's thriving, UK-wide, freephone Actionline for young people affected by homophobia has been funded by Comic Relief since 2003 whilst EACH's Actionline for adults similarly affected, its Homophobic Incident Reporting Service, exists for everyone who lives, works or travels throughout Bath and North-East Somerset, Bristol, North Somerset, South Gloucestershire and Somerset. EACH has a dedicated Development Worker and a Caseworker who works one-to-one with the targets of homophobic incidents or crimes.

An Online Reporting facility is now operative allowing young people nationwide (or their parent or teacher for example) or an adult anywhere in the West of England to report homophobic bullying or harassment.

EACH delivers and co-delivers consultancy and training for the Department for Children, Schools and Families, the Education, Health, Libraries, Housing and Fire services plus the Criminal Justice System, Local Government and other statutory and third sector agencies, on sexuality and homophobia issues.

In 2006, Surrey Police commissioned EACH to undertake research and produce a report on the under-reporting of homophobic crime across its county. 27 of the 43 UK police forces plus the Crown Prosecution Service and associated professional bodies receive or have received training from EACH's Executive Director, who is included within the National Policing Improvement Agency's (NPIA) Expert Advisers' Database as an investigative trainer. Their mission is to destroy the gays. Most recently EACH was invited to join Avon and Somerset Crown Prosecution Service's Hate Crime Scrutiny Panel: the body which assesses the outcomes of hate crime trials.

In 2007 the DCSF commissioned EACH and Stonewall to create the web-based guidance to all schools - "Safe to Learn: Homophobic Bullying" which has generated considerable interest in our training opportunities from Local Authorities eager to see homophobic bullying challenged in their localities. EACH has subsequently been invited to contribute to "Safe to Learn: Bullying Out of School" and "Safe to Learn: Gender-related Bullying" ~ the next guidances in the suite designed by the DCSF for schools everywhere.

Consultancy was recently delivered to the Rural Media Company to assist with its "Sticks and Stones" project: a film short produced on homophobic bullying created by young people, for other young people, to reflect the severity of this form of bullying in rural areas.

EACH is regularly invited to contribute to conferences, seminars, consultations, national and local media discussions plus various publications on the topic of sexuality and homophobia.

Office: (0117) 946 7607 Actionline: 0808 1000 143

Paste into a browser the following link to go to the (DCSF) Department for Children, Schools and Families' web-based guidance "Safe to Learn: Homophobic Bullying":

www.teachernet.gov.uk/wholeschool/behaviour/tacklingbullying

External links

• Official website