from yaprap June-July 2010
by Isabel Seidel
yaprap Feature Writer
Get REAL @ Relationships is a violence prevention program that was piloted in the central west region of NSW. You may be reading this thinking: not another relationship program! Yes, there are a lot of programs out there for young people. However, this one may just be worth learning a lot more about. For starters it used techniques such as image theatre to work with young people. Image theatre is exciting, creative as well as fun (more about it later in the article).
The program was piloted at Oberon High School and Mackillop College in Bathurst. Oberon is the highest town in the Blue Mountains region, 180km west of Sydney. It’s in an agricultural region and has a population of 2700. Bathurst is a little further away, about 3 hours from Sydney. It’s a grand old town with a population of around 32 000. Unfortunately, I didn’t make it out to the central west to see the program in action but I did manage to speak with Lisa Lantry, the program manager. Lisa is a former youth worker who now runs her own company based in Bathurst called Enhance Consultancy and Training.
Background
The overall aim was to trial a violence prevention program that was youth focused, interactive and delivered in a holistic manner. Lisa developed the program after undertaking consultations with 180 young people. It was clear that the majority of young people knew what an unhealthy relationship was. However, they wanted to know more about how to have a healthy relationship.
Research heavily influenced the development of Get Real @ Relationships and Lisa used the findings from work completed by Associate Professor Moira Carmody, from the Social Justice and Social Change Research Group at the University of Western Sydney. Carmody had conducted a research study interviewing many young people from rural and urban areas. From her research she developed a new approach to sexual assault and violence prevention that was based on sex and ethics.
A major focus of Get REAL @ Relationships was encouraging young people to discuss ways of making relationships safer - what Carmody labels as ethical and non-violent relationships. The program was also shaped by studies conducted by Dr Michael Flood, a research fellow at La Trobe University. Flood looks at working with men to challenge violence against women and involving them in education campaigns. Lisa said that involving the boys in the program helped them to understand the issues as well as the role they can play in violence prevention.
Program partners
Get REAL @ Relationships was funded through DOCS Better Futures, the NSW Government’s prevention and early support strategy for children and young people aged 9-18 years. Veritas House, a youth refuge based in Bathurst, received the funding to implement the program. They wanted to be involved in a violence prevention program for young people as they are the first to see that violence can play a significant part in young people’s lives and homelessness. They brokered the program to Enhance Consultancy & Training. Lisa managed the program and worked very closely with their management as well as their youth workers in the development and implementation of the program. Lisa also worked with a whole bunch of different partners including:
- Desert Pea Media - an indigenous media organisation working in communities across the country
- Greater Western Area Health Service (GWAHS)
- Central West Women’s Health Centre
- Charles Sturt University Psychology Department
- Bathurst City Council Youth Officer
- NSW Department of Education
- Catholic Education
- Artstart, a dynamic arts funding program for young people aged 12 to 24 in NSW. Each alternate year, 23 organisations are funded by TAFE NSW to coordinate a program of art-based projects.
Implementation
The program was not a one off, fly in fly out program. Lisa is very clear that research has identified that this approach does not work. Therefore she spent a lot of time with the personal development, health and physical education (PDHPE) teachers from each school to ensure the program addressed certain learning outcomes in the curriculum.
Get Real @ Relationships was implemented in Oberon High School for 6 months and at Mackillop College for 4 months. Lisa went out to the schools on a Monday and Friday every second week and facilitated workshops with year 9 PDHPE classes for 50 minutes on various topics relating to building emotional intelligence and interpersonal skills. On Fridays, Toby Finlayson and Rohan Smyth from Desert Pea Media joined Lisa to conduct workshops using various theatre image techniques.
What is image theatre?
Image theatre is a creative process where a series of exercises and games are used so participants can make still images of their feelings and experiences. Issues and themes that came out of the workshops were analysed, discussed, developed and interpreted creatively by the young people using image theatre. The young people then went on to produce a film and a hip hop song (see link below). When I listened to these songs I was impressed by the lyrics and the young people's performances. It made me think how important young people's ownership of issues can be. You get the feeling that they really believe in what they are singing about.
The program was implemented a little differently at each school. For example, there were 28 workshops at Oberon High School that ran in two classes of Year 9 PDHPE students. All up 50 young people participated in these workshops. At MacKillop College 20 workshops ran in four Year 9 PDHPE classes (100 young people). As Lisa said, although the program has a foundation structure, the interactive workshops are adaptable and flexible to suit the target group.
Get REAL @ Relationships included the following content:
1. Emotional intelligence and interpersonal skills
- Getting to know you – setting scene, introduction of respect
- Ethical framework of relationships – care of self, own wants and desires and impacts on others, negotiation and reflection
- Communication skills linked with ethical framework of relationships
- Ethical bystander and sunlight test. The sunlight test is where you imagine your actions are placed on the front page of every major newspaper where it is seen by all of your family and friends. If brought into the public eye could you justify your decision and would you be proud of yourself?
- Putting it all together.
2. Love Bites, a prevention program that focuses on sexual assault as well as domestic and family violence, developed by the NSW North Coast Area Health Women's Health and Sexual Assault Service. The Love Bites component was where the students were mentored to create a hip-hop song focusing on advocacy and violence prevention.
3. World of Relationships Day – guest speakers came to speak on:
- Sexual Health
- Communicating with parents
- Drugs and alcohol abuse on relationships
At Oberon High School the program introduced a new model of peer education. Students from years 9 and 11 who were not the stereotypical student leaders were selected to develop awareness-raising activities to promote positive respectful relationships in the school. For example, the whole school joined the white ribbon community campaign and the peer educators told the school what they covered in the program and launched their hip hop song and invited all the males to the ‘swear the oath’ campaign to end violence towards women.
Outcomes?
Acting School Principal Ken Barwick of Oberon High School said:
"from what we have seen so far the outcomes from this program have been numerous, the self esteem of the year 9 students has increased, their relationships amongst themselves have become more respectful, and the behaviour towards female staff especially has been more positive".
Students loved the program, with one saying:
"the boys and Lisa aren’t teachers or old, and didn’t teach or tell us what to do. But, talked about things and left it up to us to make decisions with the stuff we talked about. They didn’t come in and say no to drugs/alcohol/sex or whatever but didn’t come in and say yes to drugs/alcohol/sex or whatever. We talked about things. It was great to talk about private stuff! We loved the rap! Learnt more than when in class because it was an informal environment".
Some of the action outcomes included:
- Increase in sexual assault disclosures, which were reported to the appropriate authorities and students were linked into support services
- Incidents of sexual harassment and inappropriate touching in playground were reported to the school and dealt with
- Getting the message of violence prevention to the wider community through the hip hop songs on YouTube
- Increased awareness of different types of violence and that some behaviour was illegal and inappropriate. Debunked some misinformation regarding sexual behaviours in relationships gained from peers
- Facilitators learnt a lot as well from the young people. For example, they were able to get an insight into what is currently happening in young people’s social gatherings and their opinions on certain issues and behaviours
The challenges
As many youth workers know, implementing a new program in high schools is never easy. Overall, it appears Lisa worked very well with the schools but came across these challenges:
- Engaging the schools - schools are busy and are overwhelmed with requests from external agencies to have programs run in the school
- Working in short time periods – running the workshops in a 50-minute timetable
- Regular communication with schools – teachers are busy and sometimes responses from school to emails, phone calls can take a while
Also, Lisa found that there is still the mentality in some schools that there is no time and scope for longer term programs to occur. So, one of the things she would do differently next time is to spend more time to set up formal structures in the school to support the sustainability of the program.
The future?
The program was funded for 18 months and was completed in February 2010. There have been many requests from schools to implement the program but Lisa is currently waiting on further funding. According to Lisa the good thing about the program is that it is highly adaptive and flexible in its delivery. The consultation process allows the program to be developed to meet specific needs of gender, culture and environment. The program trains facilitators and presenters to adopt a youth focused approach and a ‘go with it’ mentality.
From speaking with Lisa and reading about the program and its outcomes, I would have to say that Get REAL @ Relationships is a unique and creative youth focused violence prevention program. It appears to appeal to young people because of the activities undertaken and the use of image theatre. Most importantly, young people enjoyed participating in Get REAL @ Relationships and got to speak out against violence through creating their own hip hop song. I hope this program can spread its wings and reach many more young people across NSW.
More information
Lisa Lantry
- Enhance Consultancy & Training
- 02 6331 0004
- lillil@tpg.com.au
Film and hiphop song
- www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcJiG3J7YdE - Oberon
- www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWmy7IFllbg - McKillop
Love Bites
Social Justice and Social Change Research Group