The Dice Game is a youth work activity created by The Proud Trust to help facilitate important conversations with young people about safety and consent in their current and future relationships.

Aims

The aim of this session is to talk about a range of sexual activities that can happen with the coming together of different body parts (and objects). In the session, you will discuss why these might be pleasurable activities (depending on individual preferences) and highlight some of the protection options that should be considered.

Learning Objectives

• To equip young people with the language to describe different types of sexual activities.
• To challenge and reduce misconceptions, and to broaden the idea of what sex is or can be.
• To explore how different sexual activities can be pleasurable for some.
• To understand what protection may be needed to help make some sexual activities safer.
• To understand how positive communication is an effective tool in having ownership over your own body as part of healthy sexual relationships.

Guiding Principles

The Dice Game is a youth work educational resource that has been developed by professionally qualified youth workers, with input from young people, teachers and sexual health professionals. While The Dice Game can be adapted for use in school or other youth settings by skilled practitioners, importantly, it is not a “teaching” resource. That is to say that in using this resource, you are not teaching your group about sexual activities and experiences, rather you are using the dice as stimuli to draw out young people’s current knowledge, then working with that information, challenging it if required and correcting it if needed.

The Dice Game is underpinned by youth work values and principles:

• Active Participation and Empowerment – starting from where young people are in relation to their own feelings, values, views and principles.
• Voluntary Engagement – young people can choose to be involved, recognising each young person as a partner in their learning process, requiring a trusting relationship between young people and youth workers, built on mutual respect.
• Non-Formal Education and Informal Learning – a rights-based informal education process which encourages young people’s autonomous agency.
• Equality, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion – treating young people with respect, valuing differences and promoting the acceptance and understanding of others.

Before delivering this activity, we recommend that youth workers should:

• Read the entire session plan and understand the activities.
• Have clear group ground rules in place.
• Assess your group of young people in relation to their age and stage for the appropriateness of this activity.
• Have an established positive relationship with your group of young people.
• Have previously delivered sessions on healthy relationships, including consent, to your group of young people.
• Have previously delivered sessions on contraception and STIs (including condom, dental dam and PrEP use) to your group of young people.

Audience

This youth work activity has been designed specifically to include people who are sometimes missing from the discussions, activities and education about relationships and sexual health. In particular, we have designed these activities to be inclusive of LGBTQ+ people – a group of people who don’t always feel able to share their identity, and therefore can often be ignored. This does not mean that the session is only suitable for this group, rather it has been designed to encourage openness and to reduce assumptions for all young people.

You know your group, and you should facilitate discussions confidently and appropriately, taking into consideration factors such as age, special educational needs, disabilities, faith and culture, as well as your own knowledge of the young people involved, when discussing sensitive topics.

Safeguarding

Your group or organisation’s safeguarding policies and procedures should be adhered to during the delivery of this session as they would with any other activity.

The Dice Game pack comes with a printed guide to the activity as well as two large inflatable dice. Each side of the dice are each printed with the words:

• Anus
• Hands & Fingers
• Mouth
• Object
• Penis
• Vulva (including vagina)

Following the instructions in the printed guide, the facilitator will work through the introduction and prepare the group to take part in the activity. The group can then roll the two dice to give a randomised combination of two body parts/object. This will then spark a conversation about what might happen when those two things come into contact, how that might feel, how to communicate about this activity and what safety considerations to think about. You can prompt discussion with questions such as:

• What are the names of the possible sexual activities that can be done when these two options come together? (e.g., if mouth and vulva are rolled, the sexual activity named might be ‘oral sex’)
• What is the pleasure associated with this sexual activity?
• What protection might you need to consider with this sexual activity?
• How would you communicate to a potential or existing sexual partner that you wanted to do this sexual activity?
• How would you communicate to a potential or existing sexual partner that you did not want to do this sexual activity?

The printed guide includes notes on every combination. For example, if “hands and fingers” and “mouth” are rolled, the guide says:

• The mouth, hands and fingers are all very sensitive. Kissing the hands and fingers, stroking the lips or sucking fingers can all be a pleasurable part of sex.
• As germs can be passed from any skin-to-skin contact, hands should be washed regularly. Nail length should also be considered.

Why was The Dice Game created?

The Dice Game was created in response to the young people accessing our youth groups consistently telling us that the sexual health information that they were receiving in mainstream education was not meeting their needs.

Isn’t it wrong to talk about this with people under 18?

In the UK young people can legally consent to sexual activity from the age of 16. It is vital that young people have the language they need to navigate relationships, ideally before those relationships begin. This gives them the tools they need to ensure their safety, communicate their needs and to recognise potentially harmful behaviour. The government has important advice on age-appropriate RSE, and how to assess the best age to introduce particular topics. The Dice Game is designed to be used within this framework.

When LGBTQ+ inclusive RSE is not available, young people will often turn to the internet for answers to their questions. Although there is a wealth of positive and helpful resources online, there is also the risk of young people finding harmful images and misleading information. For example, research shows that the average age at which young people first see an explicit image online is 13. It is therefore important that young people have access to clear, factual information around sex and relationships from a trusted source, such as their youth group.

Why the dice? Isn’t this format inappropriate?

One of the things we have learned from our work with young people is that it can often be very difficult for them to ask questions if they are embarrassed, even when the question they want to ask is important. In this format, the dice are posing the question instead of the young person, enabling the facilitator to lead the conversation through a questioning style. The interactive nature of the activity also makes it a more effective learning tool, meaning that the young people involved in the lesson are more likely to retain the key information.

Why was The Dice Game updated?

We review all of our resources periodically and this is no exception. It’s important to make sure The Dice Game is up to date, including all of the latest research. We have also added extra guidance for facilitators, based on the feedback we have received on previous versions.

Can The Dice Game be used in schools?

This version of the Dice Game is designed primarily for youth work, but teachers may choose to use it in secondary schools. The resource fits well with the latest RSE guidance for schools, which recommends:

“Schools should ensure that they cover all the facts about sexual health, including STIs, in a way that is relevant for all pupils, including those who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or gender questioning.”

As with any RSE resource, teachers should consult with staff and parents in line with their school’s existing policies when selecting any RSE resource.