Kids Can Say No (1985)

Interesting facts

Kids Can Say No! is a 1985 British short educational film produced and directed by Jessica Skippon and written by Anita Bennett. It is intended to teach children between ages five and eight how to avoid situations where they might be sexually abused, how to escape such situations, and how to get help if they are abused. In the film, Australian celebrity Rolf Harris is in a park with a group of four children and tells them about proper and improper physical intimacy, which he calls "yes" and "no" feelings. The film has four role-playing scenes in which children encounter paedophiles, with Harris and the children discussing each scene.

Production

Kids Can Say No! is a twenty-minute British short educational film intended to teach children about sexual abuse. Harris said he was naive about the subject and was motivated to make the film by a female teacher who told him that, when she spoke to her students about abuse, a traumatised girl ran out of the room; the girl later disclosed that she was being abused by a family member.

Harris, then host of Rolf's Cartoon Time, approached the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) and the Tavistock Clinic with his idea about making a film on child sexual abuse. Both organisations were receptive.

Kids Can Say No! was made in London with input from Carolyn Okell Jones, an expert on child abuse, and was filmed on Hampstead Heath in 1985. The child actors were students at the Barbara Speake Stage School. Skippon directed and produced the film. Funding was difficult because neither the Department of Health and Social Security nor the Home Office considered the film under their jurisdiction, and each office referred Skippon to the other.

Kids Can Say No! was the first British children's film about sexual abuse. The film is intended to teach children between ages five and eight how to avoid situations where they might be abused, how to get out of such situations, and how to get help if they are abused. Skippon later said that, although the people working on the film tried to keep it from being frightening to children, the task was difficult.

In April 1986, Harris met with Western Australia Police officials and members of several state-government departments in Mount Hawthorn to propose another film for children about how to handle sexual predators. Despite Harris' offer to work for free, the officials declined and instead developed a broader campaign on the subject without Harris.

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