Around the Area - Pembroke, 2006
Teens learn how to help prevent abuse; Workshop focuses on identifying and responding to those in need
ANTHONY DIXON
Around the Area - Saturday, October 07, 2006 @ 10:00
The Women's Shelter and Support Service made some waves this past weekend with a unique conference aimed at teens.
Held at Frontier Trails, "Making Waves" explored the topic of relationship violence.
Organized by a committee of members from both the Catholic and public school boards and several youth, mental health, health and social service agencies, the conference sought to indicate types of abusive relationships and provide solutions to abuse issues.
About 40 people attended, the bulk of which were students and teachers from seven Renfrew County high schools.
Organizers said they were actually hoping for greater participation but considering this was the first time the conference was held in Renfrew County, they still deemed it a success.
"Really what the conference is all about is providing education information to teens about healthy relationships to help prevent abuse," said Carolyn Millard, chairwoman of the Renfrew County Coalition for Abused Women.
The conference consisted of a series of workshops that began Friday night, continued throughout Saturday and wrapped up Sunday morning. The workshops dealt with topics like media and gender stereotypes, preventing sexual assault, self esteem, and helping a friend.
"The program is really great and the best thing about it is everybody is interacting with everybody else. It's not just a series of people talking to the students in lectures," she said.
To illustrate, she explained one workshop called "ties that bind," in which a woman was seated on a chair and slowly wrapped up with a rope.
Each coil represented an abusive aspect to a relationship. The abuses were listed on cards and read out by the students. Then, as the students discussed solutions to each of the instances of abuse, the coils were symbolically unwound until the young woman was freed. "As the students read the cards about unhealthy relationships she gets all wrapped up and then they work on solutions to each of the scenarios that will unwrap her," explained Robert Smith, a Making Waves facilitator from New Brunswick.
Another workshop called "he said, she said" separated the students by gender and had each group say one thing to their opposite gender they wanted them to know about them and then ask them a question.
Kim Deruiter, a supervisor at Columbus House, said it was the committee's hope that the students would take back what they learned to their high schools and develop a plan to recognize and deal with relationship abuse.
"These could be things like plays, peer helping and fundraisers," Ms. Deruiter explained. "We want teens to recognize and raise the profile of relationship abuse in their schools so that if you see a friend is in need you will know the resources that are available out there to help them," she said.
Funding for the conference was secured through the Women's Shelter and Support Services.
The program originated in New Brunswick in the late 1990s.