Healthy relationships focus for students
Two Nelson high schools have been selected to pilot a new national sexual violence prevention programme that will teach students how to have positive and healthy relationships.
Nelson College and Nelson College for Girls are two of nine schools across the country to pilot ACC’s ‘‘Mates & Dates’’ over term three of this year, a curriculumbased programme developed by a national sexual-violence prevention advisory group.
The secondary school pilot is part of a three-year investment by ACC, announced at the end of 2013, into preventing sexual and dating violence.
Research shows that 15-24 year olds are the group most at risk from violence by current and former partners.
One in five female, and one in 10 male secondary school students reports unwanted sexual contact or being made to perform unwanted sexual acts.
Of these, 37 per cent describe the unwanted activity as severe, and 57 per cent tell no one.
Research also shows that working with young people is one of the most effective ways of preventing sexual and dating violence.
The pilot will be evaluated at the end of term by an independent person. If it is a success, ACC wants to offer it to all secondary schools.
Sexual Abuse Support and Healing Nelson (SASH) service coordinator Sarah-Jane Macmillan will facilitate the Nelson pilot with Philip Chapman from The Male Room.
Macmillan says her organisation is excited by the announcement and as a mother of three she ‘‘100 per cent’’ backs the content covered in a comprehensive programme focused on encouraging and celebrating healthy relationships. That’s the key to changing sexual violence statistics in New Zealand, Macmillan and Chapman say.
They say students have been calling for education around positive and healthy relationships for years.
‘‘If the relationship is healthy all of those other things should come right,’’ Chapman says.
SASH has been running its own prevention programme at the two colleges for the past eight years but a national sexual violence prevention model ‘‘means that all young people are getting the same message’’, Macmillan says.
Sexual violence is almost accepted in New Zealand and it is important to show that ‘‘actually it’s not accepted and it’s not OK’’, she says. ‘‘Certainly I believe that young people are that next generation and if we can get them changing that norm then we’ve got a good future ahead.’’
Chapman says it is important that the 2000 students involved in the pilot across the country are involved in the evaluation of the programme.
‘‘We need to deliver programmes that fit around children rather than them fitting into programmes that we deliver. ‘‘If the kids don’t like it we are wasting our time.’’